GM Fyren's WotW Brimstone

Game Master Fyren

But Fyren, don't you know sharks never come out at night? Especially when it's cloudy. So there's no danger of sharks in that water. Move along, please.

Bluff: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (12) + 6 = 18

Gil will scare em off with Dancing Lights no problem!

Hmm, I thought I saw a post that Fyren was going to be absent this weekend... but I don't see it anymore...

He gave us lots of notice, so it was here, from a few days ago. And here we are still in the dang prison...

Excellent (well not excellent) I thought I was going mental since I didn't see it... obviously I didn't flip back enough pages. :)

Thanks!
Hmm, maybe we should post a summary of the weekend for when he comes back about our daring escape... :)

Fyren, I ache for the tender touch of your posts upon my brain places!

I'm consoling myself with the latest Bones Kickstarter... :)

Yes ... I want to wake up!

We just got our first set and are faced with the daunting task of painting the bastards (a task I am nobly leaving to other people to do for me. :P)

...and we're back! Sorry folks. Update coming in a bit.

Yipppeeee!

As Malum can attest, we escaped over the weekend. Swam across the water, found a big ol' box of gold and magic items, and are on the brink of toppling the government. Which has been shut down, by the way.

right... turns out... it was all a dream... a figment of fitful imagination brought about by overactive minds seeking to escape hideous torture that Tomas is subjecting you folks to... in fact, you three are still back in your cells... :)

Now why would Fyren say that Iz, Twigs and Numair are back in their cells? Guess their part of the story was a dream. Weird.

Alright, which one of you greased the rope before I used it? :)

Hey all - just a heads-up that I will be camping Friday to Sunday, so no posts from me during that time. I can post up until Thursday night, and will dive back in on Monday.

Hey Felrin, as you probably got from my post, Malum doesn't want to go to Varyston either... if that is your plan... well good luck! Malum would rather do the swamp with 'Jack. :)

Our instructions from Tiadora were "Cross the moors to the north until you get to the Old Moor Road that leads to the town of Varyston. On the old Moor Road you’ll see a manor house with a single lantern burning in the second story on the outskirts of the town to the west. If you hit the town's sawmill, you've gone too far. Master waits at the manor house. He expects you in no less than 2 days."

So we don't want to go find an inn in Varyston and hang out there, but we do need to basically get almost to town to find this manor house. That's why I've been aiming for Varyston. And I've been trying to convince Jack to lead us across the swamp, on the assumption he can do it more safely, since he's lived there.

I think we have the same goals, with not becoming dead the first and foremost.

Maybe I'm reading too much into what has been said.
This is what my understanding of the facts are:
1) Braderscar & Varyston are connected by a road (don't know the name of it)
2) There are moors to the north of Branderscar
3) There is a road on the far side of the moors (the Old Moor Road)
4) Varyston is roughly to the east of Branderscar
5) the manor we want is on the Old Moor Road, not in Varyston proper itself
6) if we hit the sawmill on the edge of Varyston we have gone too far (presumably this means that the sawmill is also on the Old Moor Road)

So from that what I understand without having a picture/map :)
1) is that there are at least two roads into Varyston the one to Branderscar and the Old Moor Road.
2) going to Varyston to connect to the Old Moor Road means entering the town and encountering all sorts of patrols
3) crossing the moor and possibly getting lost until we reach another road and then look for a manor house.

So as it stands we need to enter the moors, rest a bit, move out when we know which way is north and find a road on the north side of the moors. Then head east along that road looking for the manor, if we find the sawmill we turn around and truck west.

I think trying to get closer to Varyston at this time is a mistake as that his where the guards will head first to spread the news that we have escaped, and since we don't have horses it is unlikely we will beat them to town. :)

Well, I trashed the map, but my recollection is that Varyston is to the west. I pictured us doing more or less what you described, with that key difference. We cross the moors (and resting as part of that sounds fine to me, if we can find a place to do so) until we hit the Old Moor Road, then turn west until we find the manor house.

A couple of thoughts come to mind:

1 - since we don't have the same recollection of which way Varyston is, it will help a lot to have Grumblejack take us in the right direction.

2 - we're supposed to recognize the manor house by lights in the windows, so it would be good to arrive at night (for a few reasons, I guess, like not getting spotted on the road). I guess this point supports the idea that we rest during the day somewhere in the moors.

Strictly OOC'ly speaking of course, Malum's right in pretty much everything except that Vaston - I mean Varyston is to the west of Branderscar. The town of Varyston actually lies along the banks of the Varyston river (unnamed visible on the big map of Talingarde). The Old Moor road follows the Varyston river on one side and moors on the other until the river joins the sea on the east. The King's Highway crosses the river at one point before that as it turns north towards the other cities but it's a ways to the east along the eastern coast of Talingarde.

Also - re. resting - bear in mind that you have been on the go for quite a bit (or WILL have been on the go for quite a bit as dawn breaks). So fatigue is going to set in if the party doesn't rest and take appropriate measures... y'know... the basic necessities of life... :)

Rough sketch
*
*
*
*
*
*
********************************************|
********************************************|
--------------Varyston River--------------------------------------|----SEA
Varyston Town__________old moor rd______ ****** |
|*******************************************|
|*******************************************|
|*******************************************|
|*******************************************|
|*******************************************|
--------------King's Highway-------------------------------------/

* = Moors

Congrats Twigs... I feel like I need to take a shower to cleanse the slime off after reading that post.... ugh... hehe

Ha! That's some high praise right there. :P

As for the map, isn't there a link in the campaign info tab? I think it was in Malum's possession still, unless I'm mistaken.

there *was* a link in the campaign info tab... paper doesn't fare well when dunked in briny sea-water for an hour or so... ;)

I will be camping Friday to Sunday, so no posts from me during that time. I can post up until Thursday night, and will dive back in on Monday.

try not to get lost in the moors Felrin :)

please state your marching order, any particular precautions you want to take, speed you wish to travel at (stealth, full tilt, normal walking pace etc. etc.), general direction you want to go in...

How about something like this for order:

Felrin
Jack
Malum
Gil

I say we move at a normal walking pace, since we've got a lot of ground to cover - hard to stealth for that long, and tiring to hustle for that long. And let's head more or less north, maybe a touch west of north, so we can be sure we're still east of the manor house when we hit the road.

And let's travel into the swamps for a couple of hours, which should get us about an hour into daylight, then rest (maybe Jack can find us a nice place to hide?). We rest during the day, and set out again in the late afternoon/early evening for the Old Moor Road and our destiny. Or our inevitable recapture.

Mal/Gil - whatcha think?

That sounds like a plan and a good marching order to boot.

Roger roger.

All, I will be leaving for China and Korea on business Saturday morning, returning the following Saturday. While I expect to be able to post on occasion, it might be sporadic and a bit lower frequency. If anything starts to slow, please feel free to DMPC me to move things along.

no worries Numair... there's another shadow encounter coming up. Maybe it'll have an appetite for wizards too... ;)

Those scoundrels are catching up! How close are we to Varyston? I think Numair makes a good point about unhitching the horses (or at least the wagon), but I'd rather do so safe in the knowledge that we aren't too far out from the town.

Also all the best on your trip, Numair. Hopefully it has less mayhem than this one!

Towns and villages usually give plenty of warning as you approach them... you start seeing signs of civilization... isolated farm houses... a windmill off in the distance... grazing sheep/cows... etc. etc. before you see the town proper. I would imagine the group would have plenty of warning/knowledge that town isn't far away.

TLDR - towns have terrible sneak modifiers.

Just a quick note folks - this weekend is Canadian Thanksgiving so I will be out and about until Tuesday. I'll try and keep up with posts over the weekend but no long updates will be incoming on my part until I'm back and on a real laptop as opposed to a tablet.

Heh, sneak modifiers.

Oh, youre Canadian eeh? How abuut that! Im from Denmark so we are practically from the same country!

Mmm, Happy Turkey Day!
Alas I have to work over the weekend, but the missus is making dinner so I'll at least get some leftovers.

I'm also Canadian... :)

Did we go on hiatus again and I wasn't paying attention?

No, Malum died in the swamp, so you're just not getting the updates.

Hey Gil! Save some of that absinthe for me! And how many times have I told you not to eat the caviar with a soup spoon!

You're right, it has been a while. But weekends often slow down PbPs, as I'm sure you're aware. I expect we'll get a post tomorrow.

What Felrin said... well, that and I was hoping someone was feeling adventurous enough to see what was in the water. ;) And wanted to give everyone a day or so to post from both trios. I'll update in a few hours.

Uh, nope, not feeling adventurous enough to go wading thanks... :)

Well, Mal and Gil - shall we press on? If we want to avoid fatigue, we need to rest 8 hours, which would make it about 2 PM when we get moving again. I'm kind of deadline-driven, so that makes me want to keep going. But if we run into something on the road, it would be nice not to be fatigued. I guess I'm mildly inclined to keep going, but am flexible.

@Fyren - can Felrin guesstimate how long we need to travel on the road to get to the manor house near Varyston?

And by the way, I hope all our Australian players are okay, with the huge fires raging there. I'm in another PbP with an Aussie (Alice Margatroid, for those who know her). She's not too close to the fires, but there's so much fire activity that it's pretty nerve-wracking.

I'm for pressing on, although I failed my Fortitude, so should be interesting.

As for fires, I don't really watch TV and consequently wasn't aware Australia was experiencing them.

<visions of max security prisons with inmates lighting crap on fire and throwing it out> yup... Australia's burning... but in all seriousness, yes hopefully everyone's ok there

@Felrin - you would be able to guesstimate had Tiadora mentioned whereabouts the manor house was... but she didn't... all she said was go towards Varyston and if you hit the saw mill you've gone too far. The map was not to scale unfortunately but making an edumacated guess from what you gathered based on your wisdom stat about Gregor making a nightly run to Varyston in his carriage, you would gather that Varyston is likely 4-5 hours away on the moor road... so the manor house could be anywhere from 15 minutes to 4.9 hours away somewhere along the road... strictly OOC'ly speaking - it's about 3 hours away along the road from where your group will emerge out of the moors but you don't know that...

That's about what I was guessing. And you've got your two votes, from Gil and Fel, so let's roll.

Oh dear, a waif... :)
I see a couple of options
1) Grumblejack eats...
2) While she isn't a Halfling she probably would make a decent slave...
3) Somewhat greedy, the question arises, what did she lose
4) Either way, we can't leave her behind, she has seen us.
a. she dies
b. she becomes a prisoner and comes with us

a. she gives us any useful information she has, then dies
b. what you said

Or we take her with us and "gift" her to this "Master" person.

And it might be nice to have some sort of 'trinket' to take with us as well... assuming we can find whatever it is.

And by the way, I hope all our Australian players are okay, with the huge fires raging there.

Twigs and I are fine. Aside from the smell of smoke on the wind and a couple of blood-red moons, we haven't really been touched. We seem to be sitting in a fortunate spot where none of Australia's mulitudes of natural disasters ever hit. Though I guess that applies to Sydney in general, now that I think about it.

Worst we have to complain about is the early heat this spring.

Any guesses as to who/what the woman is/wants? Anyone? 'cept Malum... you hush and be quiet since you got to be the victim... :)

Well, I cheated a little and described the situation to my 12-year-old son, who knows at least 2 of the bestiary books by heart. Without missing a beat, he told me it was a

Right you are... or rather your son is.