GM Rednal's Northlands Saga Complete (Inactive)

Game Master Rednal

Speaking of which! Uh... does it look like we can easily follow where the throne went, or will we need to find another route?

I assume we go up to the second floor the same we did last time, and he'll be on the public speaking area.

You will definitely need to find another route up. Also, he looked like he was heading into the central tower, not the public speaking area (which is more southerly).

I'm back - thanks for botting and not getting Hakon killed.

Err, were we going back upstairs, to the one unexplored tower on the top floor?

Upstairs and away!

Up, up, upstairs and away!

Bump! I think Hakon is also okay with the "walk up a path through the rubble if there is one, or clear it if it can be cleared without a check" plan

Agreed.

By the way, everyone, good job on maintaining your defenses. o wo This fight would probably have been much, much worse for you if you hadn't.

*Definitely the kind of game where this matters*

Bump? I believe Hakon's up...

Also, I'll be traveling for most of the next week with uncertain internet, feel free to bot me as needed.

Is Hakon on holiday too?

Well, it's Easter weekend. XD Even I'm a little bit busy, although I plan to be running things promptly again no later than Monday.

Easter? I hardly know 'er!

Still, only like 50% of Americans actually celebrate Easter (though 80% buy candy), and yet this city feels like a ghost town.

I keep forgetting stuff like that. My works means holidays are irrelevant.

With the right attitude, *any job* makes holidays irrelevant!

Was anyone tracking loot? I remember some money, but also some weapons that I'm not sure if we brought.

I distinctly recall you picking up a weapon after one of them got broken...

Well I definitely grabbed the big guy's sword, and Hakon got a magic one. I thought we also found some spears and stuff somewhere, but I don't remember if it was masterwork or not.

I really just need to start doing loot lists for all my games...

From what I recall, we picked up a pile of Masterwork Breastplates, several masterwork weapons, the magical sword Hakon's carrying, the undead's sword, and the items in the frozen treasure room.

We also have the great sword we got from the Barrow King in part one that none of us could use, but I'm not sure if any of us were carrying that or if it was left home as a trophy.

I'll do a more thorough run through our plunder when I've finished up posting and such, and I'll set up an editable loot list.

Hmm, I think Hakon's wearing a breastplate, not sure if anyone else has one. IIRC we don't have the barrow king sword, just two new ones.

EDIT: Meanwhile, who's excited for the start of the Northlands AP?

Eydis is wearing one too, but I know Hakon didn't want to, and we had a couple more spare.

...and yeah, I keep forgetting this was actually the most brutal prologue in the world.

Why yes, you did just complete the prologue. XD

And... this is fairly normal for Frog God Games, actually. I know of worse early-game stuff, especially if you're just running the world as it's written and not scaling anything down...

We weren't actually carrying the armor we didn't use, I thought? Because breastplates are heavy, and I didn't think we were carrying anything beyond a few spare weapons in order to not lose maneuverability in the treacherous snow.

And yeah, Eindrid gets armor bonuses if I stay in light, so no breastplates for me.

Behold, Plunder!

OK, so not including stuff we've taken ourselves or things we haven't identified, we have a total of 8342 hs in goods with us.

I also assumed that we grabbed the Undead's silver and amethyst crown rather than its sword since no mention of a sword was ever made.

Including the stuff we've claimed, the total would be 17859 hs. Turns out an effectively +2 Longsword is a pricey toy.

So the 10% would 1786 hs or so.

I'd say the Unholy Symbol, unclaimed Masterwork Breastplates and a Halberd plus Masterwork Greatsword should pay our fee, including inflation for however much the crown turns to be worth (unless it's a really expensive crown or Rednal declares we didn't get it). It leaves the items with the cooler story for the Jarl.

EDIT: If we weren't carrying the Breastplates, that reduces the total by 1050 hs, changing the total to 16809 and the fee to 1681 hs. I suppose we could give him the Potions instead?

Wait, I thought he was fighting us with an obviously-magical great sword?

If not, I'll have gladly grabbed the crown as the one piece of loot from his body.

He seems to have just clawed the crap outta us, mostly, but I may be missing something.

Technically, it was a falcata - and also his own magic actually empowering it, from auto progression. He did mostly use the claws, though, since they could paralyze. Stat-wise, since I remember some interest in that, he was an undead hoar spirit antipaladin, pretty good Strength and Dex. Fire would've worked well, had anyone tried to use it. XD

Darn. No crown for us, then.

Oh, right. Did he have anything special powering up his CMD? And yeah, I would've grabbed the sword over the crown, it makes for a better trophy.

P.S. Hakon, I think we're waiting on you?

Good stats, mostly. XD No specific items doing so.

Eydis's total suggests 4560 hs worth of usable loot (which we could sell for half that) plus 3782 hs in direct currency and trade goods/treasures.

3 Masterwork halberds should pay 1/10 of that haul pretty nicely, and we're not about to use them (unless they want 1/10 of our salable loot value, in which case, because our total loot value goes down, this becomes 4 halberds).

Everyone okay giving away some real-nice-shiny halberds?

Meanwhile, those masterwork breastplates we're not using seem like a pretty good candidate for ring-giving (or jarl tax) to the folks back home. It does seem like someone made a point of lashing the extra breastplates to their pack, and the three unused ones come out to a good 1/10 or so of our remaining wealth.

* * *

Meanwhile, it's time to buy some shiny mithral armor! Do we just skip ahead to our arrival in Halfstead, then? Eindrid's next actions will probably be looking for a seer who can Object Reading on the undead king's sword, and then it's off to gather the local news.

Fortunately, Halfstead is one of the rather few places in the Northlands where mithral gear is actually buyable. XD It goes up to Half-Plate (Tower Shields and Full Plate are not available), with lesser gear being generally present.

It's no Bard's Gate - Halfstead is literally just 3.8% of the average population of that place - but it is about the best you'll get for shopping variety. XD

So has been said! But it seems like a good cash sink atm, considering my penalty to dex skills.

Halberds work for me. Eydis might eventually swap out Roksper, but only if a suitable storyline spear comes along.

And no, if Rednal has no objection to us keeping the breastplates, I'm fine with putting them aside for Jarl-tax and divying up the remainder. No idea what if anything I'll buy Eydis...better armour does seem to be a good call.

You could find out if it's possible (at +50% cost or something) to put a sphere staff on a spear?

If I objected to you potentially keeping the gear, you wouldn't have gotten it.

Now, if OTHER people object - because of shares you owe to others, et cetera - that's just a story thing. XD And if you decide wearing heavy armor while you're on a fairly small boat sailing into storms while you go all viking raider on people is a good idea... that's on you.

It is possible to combine a weapon and a sphere staff - I actually have a character like that - but Automatic Bonus Progression makes that wonky. XD Basically, you have to 'attune' your weapon as a spherestaff, and craft in any extra abilities like multiple spheres or extra talents known. ...And Craft Staff isn't available for awhile. (There's nobody in town who can do it, either. Magical crafting is not common in the North, and most of what can happen at all is, like, Brew Potion from the few sorcerers they like, which they'd do on-demand instead of to sell. The Wizards generally don't hang out in town.)

Ah, fair enough. I guess you could always buy land or livestock? I'm not really sure what to do with the rest of the wealth either, and scarcity of resources might limit crafting feats.

There's a reason we're using Automatic Bonus Progression. Wealth is much less of a factor for this game than it is in many others.

People might laugh if you try to buy land that's not already occupied, though. For the most part, claiming it is as simple as being a free person, pointing, and saying "mine". Of course, you're also responsible for defending it, but hey. That's rugged individualists for you. XD

Many heroes are expected to be good ring-givers, which is something you can do with your wealth if you're not sure what else to do with it - and don't forget, there's an XP reward for giving away wealth you've earned. Which reminds me - you got 800 for that boss. *Updates that*

Oh, sure. "Land" was a bit vague—I meant downtime stuff. At some point, Hakon's going to probably want to construct his own longhouse, Eydis could build a small shrine, and Eindrid probably wants to own books someday, which might mean owning or renting lodgings of his own.

Alternately, we could just hoard jewelry. Is ring-giving XP per person, or for the party?

Party. I may cut it down later if I feel like it's too easy to get XP that way, but it should be fine for now.

I'm sorry, a lot of numbers are being thrown around. How much hs do we each have after giving away the 10% and so forth?

Bookkeeping:

I was suggesting that getting rid of the breastplates and halberds is close enough to what we owe the Jarl and our rescuers (while also being goods they can use more than we can) that we might as well just assume such and take it out of our bookkeeping.

If I did the math right, this leaves us with 8860 hs after selling items (about half of our wbl, but there's also abp).

I'd potentially suggest ring-giving 2860 hs, which gets us all to the nice and orderly 2000 hs per person. (Alternately, if Hakon wants a mithral breastplate, we could give him a bet extra to buy that, then call it a debt to cash in later, since Eindrid would be fine right now with only 500 and I'm not sure what Eydis wants).

Follow-up: Maybe we can figure that out in discussion, and continue with the campaign? I'm not sure if we're just waiting to get treasure sorted out, then jumping back to arrival at Halfstead? (where I assume plot is waiting for us)

Planned expenditures for Eindrid:
-Mithral Chain Shirt (1050 after resale of old armor)
-Retraining level 4 ability increase from +1 dex to +1 str (I forgot briefly that I needed this to get power attack back someday) (200 gp)

No real purchases here. I'll probably pour more money into things when we return home, which I assume we'll be doing soon (or trying to do).

I'd like to upgrade to heavier armour given my lack of Dex, but the whole swimming things suggest a dire need for Mithral or a Ring of Swimming, which I'm not likely to be finding. Plus full plate isn't typically in the Northlands Aesthetic - your average Viking was more chain and lamellar clad. The ones who wore heavier armour tended to have pinched it. 'Cos, again, drowning was seen as a bad thing. Which means we're already at the upper end of things with Breastplates.

If Rednal was up for it, I suppose we could fluff adding more onto a Breastplate - leg, neck and arm defences - and coming up with something with a more suitable aesthetic, but I still don't have the cash.

Great, and thanks guys for keeping track ;) I'm fine with giving up the halberds and breastplates. The ring giving amount is fine, but don't we want to give that to our own people when we get home?

I'd love get a mithral breastplate, but would be happy with a mithral chain shirt too so as to save money.

Also, is there a temple or priest dedicated to Wotan in Halfstead? I want to ask them about the blade I acquired, and get their blessing to wield it.

It's not so much the aesthetic as they literally don't have anything heavier than half-plate - you can't buy it, and nobody knows how to forge it. XD That, and it gets coooooold. Most people might not want to wear that much metal without a great deal of padding.

There's no real temple to Wotan - Northlanders don't "worship" their gods in the way people in other lands do. They see them much more like part of their family - with certain authorities, but far from absolute existences. For that matter, there's no formal church structure in general, just traditions. XD There is a Godi (priest) dedicated to Wotan in town, though. He's not a cleric, but he does have rituals for blessing the weapons of warriors and such.

Incidentally, there are a few options for that. Aside from Wotan, Baldr (Balder) and Donar (Thor) are patrons of heroes, while Tiwaz (Tyr/Thyr) is a little more justice and order-focused. (Although since you're CG, Donar is the closest alignment-wise... but most Northlanders don't care too much about that and just kind of loosely venerate the pantheon as a whole. XD)

Perfect. I'll be wanting to meet with the Godi then to discuss the blade. It's a precious relic, and Hakon doesn't assume he can wield it just because he recovered it. He'll be seeking the godi's blessing. I'm fine with the others coming along, or our doing some handwaving if you'd all rather not take the time and move things along.

Well, it's up to them if they'd like to come along... XD

(Incidentally, I notice your profile is saying you have Weapon Focus in both Heavy Shield and Hand Ax. You might wanna straighten that out.)

Note that the *second*-most experienced priest of Wotan in Halfstead is probably Eydis.

Eindrid is a "paladin of Tiwaz" to the extent that such things are a thing, and can actually identify magic items; I was potentially searching for someone with the ability to identify *non*-magical items.