GM Parrot's The Ferry and the Depths: Rappan Athuk (Inactive)

Game Master parrot familiar

Anzath is itchy for something to do. She'll gladly.join Bedlam in training the townsfolk in Survival and Stealth.

Bedlam: if you want to actually level up a follower, you'll have to use Leadership. Or be patient, it takes a while to get good at stuff. You are all very special to be developing so fast in the space of a few months in-game, I think magic must be involved. However, if you want to send the woodcutter and the half-orcs out for a scouting mission, that's fine with me! I'm also ok with them getting some rudimentary training from you, but I don't know if I'll bother boosting their stats officially... more likely I'll factor it into the storytelling... unless we start an offshoot campaign for The Foresters of the Ferry!

No worries. Just planning out a road...lol.

Understood! If you want to start planning out what will become the Army of the Ferry that will carry its banners into the shadow in order to triumph in the end... you have my blessing!

Adelie, it looks like you paid the full price for those items to be purchased in Riddleport. If you did end up just getting the materials for some or all of them, just let me know and I will be glad to work them into the schedule.

Parrot, I think we have a few days before Aurora can use the scroll on Bedlam to get rid of his last (for now) negative level. We wanted to stay in town at least that long. I could stay here for weeks crafting, but I don't want to hold us for that long; we have a fire-breathing deadline to meet.

Adelie, it looks like you paid the full price for those items to be purchased in Riddleport. If you did end up just getting the materials for some or all of them, just let me know and I will be glad to work them into the schedule.

I wrote the full prices down, but Adelie doesn’t actually own the craftable items yet, unless Tragershen told him he wouldn’t/couldn’t craft them. I remember talking to Parrot about it, and it was during a confusing time... I’m not exactly sure what’s going on with the items now.

While what you do next is entirely up to the party, there's no penalty for sitting in place for weeks while crafting--except for the dragon tax.

One Rappan Athuk playthrough I was was involved in had the party chill in town for over a year in-game, just crafting. How many days would you need to finish your projects?

Adelie, it looks like you paid full price for those items. If you had the gold on hand, I think it would be simplest just to say you bought it all yourself. If not, then we can work out what Trag can do to help you out. And if +1 to your will save would have protected you from the harpies... my condolences!

We could Craft/Train until our next payment. Unless we are short the price.

Trag has about 30 days of crafting to do with the materials on hand for himself, Tal and Lolly. I don't know that we necessarily need to wait for that; I can do some crafting while we are traveling.

A week would finish Tal's spear to +2 and Lolly's cloak done. Two weeks would get Tal's belt done and Trag's cloak upgrade. Maybe split the difference and do a week or two in town and then hit the road? The next time we have a big stash of loot, we can do some longer downtime. Maybe that will be when we are ready to take on the dragon. Then we can spend the loot from his horde at our leisure.

I'm cool with that plan, Trag.

Other thoughts?

I’m feeling at a loss as to what Anzath can do while we wait on crafting. I think training a few townsfolk on Survival skills is a good use of her time if it has a positive effect. I’d be happy to make a roll to see if she can confer a bonus to applicable NPCs.

Otherwise, she’s concerned the hobgoblin seem to be moving toward the dungeon.

Adelie doesn’t have the items on his shopping list (aside from the scrolls and potions). Parrot said that Adelie could buy them now, but at the moment, he only has the materials. If Tragershen is willing to craft them, Adelie can give Tragershen the difference in price between the cost of crafting and the cost of buying. If Tragershen doesn’t want to craft them, Adelie has the items and no money.

What I'm hearing--we have a slight bottleneck as Tragershen's ability to craft is in high demand. Tragershen: you may also have been crafting while traveling to the Ferry, of course. You'd need about 41ish days of crafting to finish everything requested by everyone (30 days quoted by Trag above + 11k of stuff for Adelie). You have a monthly gig bringing tribute to a dragon, so you need to find something to toss his way. Preferably not Anzath. You have a broader interest in a few other things: getting to the bottom of the big dungeon and (how minor they seem) marauding hobgoblins. It only makes sense that you'd try to get to the bottom of the hobbo threat soonish, while also planning to go delving for dragonloot.

How 'bout sending the Foresters out to find the hobgoblins, then decide what to do? I'll run with this idea later unless someone has a better plan.

I say go earn yer gold!

Scout it out!

Busy early week at work--will post this afternoon/evening!

If you are busy at work again, I'm hoping this means you're well again and doing fine. So far we've managed to dodge the COVID bullet.

Yep! It was a week of feeling sick but, mercifully, it landed over my spring break. We've both been better for a while now. I'm video-teaching one class on mythology and one on that is partly on early 20th century science fiction, horror, and fantasy--that's pretty good! Kate's working from home, too. Can't complain.

Not that i have time, but, any way we can audit that second class?

Not that i have time, but, any way we can audit that second class?

Or the first one?

Those do sound fun.

You are making me miss school...i loved those classes!

Thanks, folks! It's my dream job with the one downside that I never know if they are going to hire me again from year to year. My application for renewal is in, though! Wish me and the Washington state budget luck!

My one class is based on texts in the public domain (yay, free books!), which constrains us to the early-mid 20s and thus we miss out on a lot of great 1930s stuff. We're going way back on the sci-fi/fantasy, but horror has a longer lineage through the gothic that I'm not really addressing (I'm pondering dropping some Poe on them).

Some highlights have been Lord Dunsany's The Book of Wonder (representing early fantasy, a VERY good book for a DnD player!), Algernon Blackwood's "The Willows" , Arthur Machen's unfortunately titled but amazing "The White People" (these two pair nicely, spooky horror), WEB Du Bois' The Comet (early Af-Am post-apoc sci-fi!).

We've also read stuff by HG Wells. Gertrude Barrows Bennett/Francis Stevens. William Hope Hodgson--did you know that the monsters that inspired Tolkein's orcs battle against a hero wielding the weapon that inspired Lucas' lightsaber? In a 1912 post-apocalyptic novel? We don't have time to read The Night Land, alas, and it'd be a cruel teacher who tried to. GBB and WHH's best works are their longest, which makes them hard to squeeze into a course. I think both will be more famous someday than they are right now. Just a glimpse at Lovecraft ("The Outsider").

Oh, and this lost-but-now-recovered gem of a silent film, Dawley's 1910 Frankenstein . It gets better/smarter every time I watch it (which is easy, it's 13 mins long).

Typing it all out, it looks like we've read/watched a lot! About 1/4 of the students are writing their own stories, and the rest are doing essays. Keeping it easy.

Mythology class is fun too, but probably has fewer surprises. They're writing papers about modern adaptations of classical myths this week. They got to pick their myths. Percy Jackson for miles around.

I've got to go teach! Game post later!

Awesome! Some new-to-me names to check out!

I am both envious and happy for you Parrot!

I recently picked up a copy of A Treasury of Modern Fantasy. A Collection of short stories, from 20s-70s, so later than what your course is on. Some good stuff.

I'll add your books to my reading list. Thanks!

That is quite a solid-looking list.

Considers literal piles of books around to read.

Well, more to read!

I hope you find something good in there, Lolly!

Thanks Beds!

Anz: the Treasury looks amazing. Of those authors, Merritt and Clark Ashton Smith are the most on my radar. Smith is pretty great and has a solid web presence . I was thinking of adding his "The City of the Singing Flame" or the very-DnD-compatible "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis" to my class, in part because he published poetry in Poetry Magazine before he turned more to weird fiction, and we might be reading some issues of Poetry. Merritt has his moments--some positive, some not. It'd be good for me to read a collection like that, since I know very little about the mid-century. I'll put it on my next book order...

...speaking of whihc, Talathel: I'll quote one of my undergrad profs when I was listing the books I wanted to read, "Welcome to a lifelong and debilitating addiction."

I enjoyed The Woman in the Woods by Merritt. Haven’t gotten to the Smith story yet, but the title is intriguing.

Planning to dig into this topic at the weekend. Bandwidth a little scarce atm!

Apologies for my absence - There have been multiple medical situations in my family and things are a bit confusing. I’ll try to post later today, but please bot me if necessary. Thank you and stay safe.

All the best, Adelie.

All blessings.

Indeed, hope things work out!

I currently have an earache so my response time might be affected.

I hope all goes well, Adelie.

I beefed up this encounter by swapping one generic troll for an enhanced troll NPC I found on the d20pfsrd. The CR level for the whole encounter is well within your range and below stuff you've handled before, but whoa that troll+ is a well-built monster!

Fine by me!

We'll just have to make it a deceased monster. ;)

Worse case scenario, necklace of fireballs.

Trag, did you give the necklace of fireballs back to Anzath?

Trag, did you give the necklace of fireballs back to Anzath?

He did return it, back here.

This hopefully a cold has been kicking my butt something fierce the last few days, sorry for the slow responses.

I hope that you feel better soon.

Good luck, Aurora! Pass those fort saves.

You have Remove Disease prepared, right?

Apologies to resorting to nerd humor to try to minimize what I'm sure is a stressful situation. I hope you recover soon, Aurora!

Will post tomorrow!

My intentions are definitely not to have you feel a lesser GM, but to be of help. As a GM i know how difficult it can be keeping track of everything. Also, if it keeps us alive, all the better.

I actually find it harder at the table to keep track of things. In our homegame, i totally forgot our druid cast Detect Pits and Snares as they infiltrated a kobold stronghold, and through some pretty nasty traps their way. It wasnt until the ranger fell down a 20 foot pit full of lizard guano in the middle of the boss fight that the player reminded me. We had to pause the action to disect the spell word for word, and it ends up without the player declaring they are spending a round or two concentrating, they cant detect the location of traps, only their presence, and there were literally traps EVERYWHERE so we were able to move on as is. But boy did i feel shitty for forgetting.

Agreed! As a DM also, I may have been known to forgot those things on occasion. To be fair, I forget the Bards buffs all the time...lol.

A year or so ago I started running games again after a twenty plus year hiatus. D&D 5e is so much simpler than what I ran before (AD&D, GURPs, Champions, etc.). I still struggle every time we play.

As the characters level up and get more complicated, I think it should fall to us to remember the intricacies that go with it. If I don't speak up at the start of a fight to note that I always get to act in a surprise round because of my arcane school, that's on me. :)

You run a fun and exciting game; if we can take some of the logistic burden off of you, it is totally worth it!

yeah, I try to account for all buffs etc in my header line and my rolls.... if I miss something, it's on me.

Mistakes happen, let's just roll with it when they do!

Thanks everyone--this game means a lot to me. And Anz, I definitely wasn't taking it as you being persnickety, it's more that I'm feeling sloppy. Trag's right, it gets more complicated as we level up. Have any of you played in a as-high-or-higher level PbP? I know Bedlam's in a level 8 game. What's it like when stuff gets really complex?