Also: Loot of Bloodsworn Vale:Any claims?
Balthus would like to have:
potion of cure serious wounds;
ring of protection +2; and
potion of resist energy (fire 20).
But since we are coming to an end, it really doesn't matter much...
-potion of cure serious wounds
-cloak of resistance +2
-ring of protection +2
-ring of the ram (18 charges)
Any of those look nice. Though Balthus is old so he needs more protection :D
-staff of the master (necromancy, 37 charges) And with this item I can begin my reign of evil!
The gold and shiny's should go to the Fort.
Technically out of the scope of the spell...but it's so damn good I'll let the spell affect him anyway...
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A foul green miasma rises from the corpse's last false exhalation, cutting through the smoky hellscape in the form of a cloaked and hooded figure. As the figure crushes the ethereal cornugon beneath one clawed foot, a whisper resounds throughout the throne room. I'll see you again, when you join me.
GM, could you please rephrase this part? I can't understand it.
Can we see the hellish landscape as well as the target, and who is the figure?And it is talking telepathically or in common or infernal?
I took a little bit of poetic liberty with the spell to make the vision of judgement visible to everyone, though it only affects the one it's intended for. The spell, of course, always shows its target's coming fate, which for the lawful evil Vardak would be Hell, and so I've described a scene of horror taking place in Hell, where spirits are forced into misery and debasement.
But Vardak made his save against the spell, which means that the scene, for some reason, doesn't shake him. I decided that the most logical reason for that is that Vardak, being a megalomaniac, thinks he'll rise quickly in Hell's ranks and avoid the suffering that more common people experience there. And so the figure is meant to be Vardak's spirit putting itself into the picture where he believes he'll come into play - as a being dominating the others there, rather than one of the multitudes doomed to suffer.
The speech is the last remnants of the speak with dead spell, as it's the fragment of Vardak's spirit that had animated the corpse speaking as it departs. Everyone can hear it (whether it's telepathically or aloud doesn't make too much difference) and understand it.
Sorry for any confusion!
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And so the figure is meant to be Vardak's spirit putting itself into the picture where he believes he'll come into play - as a being dominating the others there, rather than one of the multitudes doomed to suffer.
That's what I wanted to know.
Believe it or not, but this outlook alone shook Percival more than anything else he said. Not the bragging or inflated ego, nor even the cruelty of indiscriminate and unjust murder. It was this simple dismissal of divine punishment that plunged the truth into Percival's heart. The fact is that evil is not punished in the Pathfinder universe; it is refined. If you aren't evil/ruthless enough in Hell/Abyss/Abaddon, you are absorbed into something more evil until every strip of goodness or neutrality is systematically ripped off (hence why I shy away from the 'redeem demons' angle in WotR).
I actually talked about this subject at length with Jetta (or at least her player) while developing a homebrew campaign I called Moonfall, an apocalyptic story where the systems that underpin Golarion's reality begin to go haywire--the most prominent of which is the cycle of souls and questioning the gods' order (if it was their order to begin with). That was a fun project (although it didn't get off the ground.
Not sure why not, though.
All this reminded me of a quote from Steven Pinker's 'The Blank Slate'.
But punishment even in the pure sense of just deserts is ultimately a policy for deterrence. It follows from a paradox inherent to the logic of deterrence: though the threat of punishment can deter behavior, if the behavior does take place the punishment serves no purpose other than pure sadism or an illogical desire to make the threat credible retroactively. 'It won't bring the victim back,' say the opponents of capital punishment, but that can be said about any form of punishment. If we start the movie at the point at which a punishment is to be carried out, it looks like spite, because it is costly to the punisher and inflicts harm on the punishee without doing anyone any immediate good.
In the middle decades of the twentieth century, the paradox of punishment and the rise of psychology and psychiatry led some intellectuals to argue that criminal punishment is a holdover from barbaric times and should be replaced by therapy and rehabilitation. The position was clear in the titles of books like George Bernard Shaw's The Crime of Imprisonment and the psychiatrist Karl Menninger's The Crime of Punishment. It was also articulated by leading jurists such as William O. Douglas, William Brennan, Earl Warren, and David Bazelon. These radical Krupkeists did not suffer from a fear of determinism; they welcomed it with open arms.
Few people today argue that criminal punishment is obsolete, even if they recognize that (other than incapacitating some habitual criminals) it is pointless in the short run. That is because if we ever did calculate the short-term effects in deciding whether to punish, potential wrongdoers could anticipate that calculation and factor it into their behavior. They could predict that we would not find it worthwhile to punish them once it was too late to prevent the crime, and could act with impunity, calling our bluff.
The only solution is to adopt a resolute policy of punishing wrongdoers regardless of the immediate effects. If one is genuinely not bluffing about the threat of punishment, there is no bluff to call. As Oliver Wendell Holmes explained, 'If I were having a philosophical talk with a man I was going to have hanged (or electrocuted) I should say, 'I don't doubt that your act was inevitable for you but to make it more avoidable by others we propose to sacrifice you to the common good. You may regard yourself as a soldier dying for your country if you like. But the law must keep its promises.''
This promise-keeping underlies the policy of applying justice ―as a matter of principle, regardless of the immediate costs or even of consistency with common sense. If a death-row inmate attempts suicide, we speed him to the emergency ward, struggle to resuscitate him, give him the best modern medicine to help him recuperate, and kill him. We do it as part of a policy that closes off all possibilities to cheat justice.Capital punishment is a vivid illustration of the paradoxical logic of deterrence, but the logic applies to lesser criminal punishments, to personal acts of revenge, and to intangible social penalties like ostracism and scorn. Evolutionary psychologists and game theorists have argued that the deterrence paradox led to the evolution of the emotions that undergird a desire for justice: the implacable need for retribution, the burning feeling that an evil act knocks the universe out of balance and can be canceled only by a commensurate punishment. People who are emotionally driven to retaliate against those who cross them, even at a cost to themselves, are more credible adversaries and less likely to be exploited.
Many judicial theorists argue that criminal law is simply a controlled implementation of the human desire for retribution, designed to keep it from escalating into cycles of vendetta. The Victorian jurist James Stephen said that 'the criminal law bears the same relation to the urge for revenge as marriage does to the sexual urge.'
Perhaps the three-faced definition of Percival as landed nobility (giving him reason to benefit from the status quo, at least to a degree), a lawyer (who saw (along with Jetta) just punishment being met), and the priest (whose purpose is to guard and propogate the divines' plan for the world) makes Vardak's simple dismissal offend him to the core of all three aspects of his personality.
The noble is appalled that the wizard is basically 'getting away with it' since he might as well indeed become a greater devil (or at least join with one); the lawyer is disgusted at the short hand of justice; and the priest looks up and asks 'Is this really the order you want?'
For the foreseeable future, nothing will happen, but this seed might as well keep festering...
Or maybe I'm reading too much into Vardak's good saving throw. :|
Hmm, I did not antisoate this ending with Amund wanting to quit the guard. Something that was a life goal for him but that seems to be the direction he is moving in.
Or maybe I'm reading too much into Vardak's good saving throw. :|
If I'm not making you over-think every saving throw, I'm not doing my job as a GM. ;)
I do see where you're coming from on the "evil isn't punished in the Golarion afterlife" argument; it's something I've considered before, too. Arguably that's an artifact of all the deities being equal in power, both good and evil. In a setting like this you don't have the paradigm of most modern Western religions, where either:
a) there is a singular God with no evil counterpart and evil is seen as more of a nebulous force rather than a being, or
b) if there is a counterpart, they are ultimately not equal in power to the singular God, and thus are subordinate to that God.
(Both of which come with their own problems in the "why is there evil" debate.) If a singular, ultimately good God is in charge of everything, then the destination for evildoers is going to be a place of punishment since it opposes that singular, ultimately good God; if gods evil and good both are similar in power, it kind of makes sense that evil won't necessarily be punished. (Although arguably the evil outer planes are still far less pleasant than the good ones - while people may ascend to outsider-hood in both, the process of getting there is generally far less awful in the good planes than the evil.)
Hmm, I did not antisoate this ending with Amund wanting to quit the guard. Something that was a life goal for him but that seems to be the direction he is moving in.
Gotta love it when a character that is literally your creation and entirely under your control surprises you and goes places you don't expect. ;)
That is why I like playing. Seeing how the character change. It makes me happy. But for now I must sleep. My new niece will be in the world in a few hours so I have less than that to nap. I am so excited!
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I suspect that Amund might not necessarily quit the guard, but relocate and get promoted to captain (or the equivalent higher rank).
With his menagerie of animals and if Balthus also relocates, the crossroad region of Bloodsworn Vale might evolve into a good natural research area, especially if Anthuria quit her groundskeeper job and also move with her family (which we don't know much of, but seems to be interesting).
Mairen has acted very task-oriented so far, so maybe she will move on after this, while Jetta has shown that she is taking steps to achieving her goals already (talk about celerity!).
But the question of 'how do we enforce the deals/promises we made?' is a very good one. Percival has thought of it, and has an idea.
When we receive land, gold, and title, he will petition King Eodred Arabasti being landed the vale. Due to its size, Korvosa's administration will likely classify it as a county, making Percival a Count who governs it.
By leveraging his current achievements along with the group's effort and his own reputation that he built in fairly resolving conflicts and negotiating (and fighting for) the vale's security, we might actually get that to work.
What do you think, everyone?
Muwahaha! Baby was born and is adorable! I am so tired. One hour of sleep is not enough! I will join the RP stuff after I get a nap in.
The Korvosan Guard is specifically charged with Korvosa. My reasoning for being here is Amunds boss wanting to find something for him to do that distances him from the loss of a close comrade, which was where you came in. With you leaving he no longer has a job related reason to stay. Amund never wanted the land, titles, or gold but to aid Korvosa. Currently his options from his point of view is to return to the city and give his report. From there he can resume his previous occupation but the idea is rather painful or he can leave the city and return to the Fort. Not as a member of the Korvosan Guard but perhaps to work with the Fort never the less.
As to the rewards I do not know and I will not know until we learn what we are given.
What a nice ending to an excellent campaign! Congratulations to GM Rennai, and the rest of you, on a job very well done. I would never have expected to enjoy a story half as much as I've enjoyed this one. I look forward to playing with you all elsewhere on the boards (there's a certain drowned city that needs exploring).
I'll write a closing post for Anthuria, but I'll wait a couple of days.
Congrats, everyone! Though I missed by far the bulk of this adventure, I'm really glad to have taken part in what little I did, and am incredibly impressed by both the DM's fortitude and everyone in general's creativity and dedication. It's been a pleasure, and a huge thank you for letting me play along!
High fives all around!
Well done!
Wonderful! Thank you all. I will get a closing post up sometime soon.
Ditto! This has definitely been the highlight of my PbP career. I'll have to think on Jetta would do, exactly. She'll definitely back Perry's countly aspirations in any way she can.
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I do see where you're coming from on the "evil isn't punished in the Golarion afterlife" argument; it's something I've considered before, too. Arguably that's an artifact of all the deities being equal in power, both good and evil. In a setting like this you don't have the paradigm of most modern Western religions, where either:
To be truthful, the best response to my argument is that death is not the end. The afterlife has as much ongoing stuff in it as the mortal world (heroes become angels, villains become devils, etc.)
It's an OK answer, but if the afterlife isn't that different than the mortal world, why have a mortal world?"My Captain, Raymond Medina, has charged me with aiding you in securing this Vale. Once secure I am to work with you in setting up a permanent guard to protect the Vale and the roads leading here."
The seed will perhaps be as safe there as anywhere - and there's no denying that such a thing could prove invaluable, should Korvosa's safety be threatened by an invading force.
--or Curse of the Crimson Throne starts in GM Rennai's games, the villains will use it to suppress revolts! >:D
And we're finished. Great job, everyone. Good a time as any for my character to retire in a better socio-political and economic (and emotional) state than before.
I have a greatest hits compilation! :D Thanks, Perry; it's neat to have a summary of the campaign like that. And useful for reminiscing - we managed to create 38 pages of content in the last year or so, after all, and that's a lot to go through. :)
Oh man, I can't believe I forgot about Owlbert! That'll be Jetta's true legacy. :D
This is seriously awesome, man. Thank you so much for taking the time to go through everything!
I share with everyone a little document I wrote up, containing memorable quotes and scenes from the game. I hope it will be a fun read.
Good stuff, thanks!
Brilliant! I will read though it in a little while. And Owlbert if my favorite!
Beautifully written, Anthuria. Beautifully written.
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Of course, he would have to contend for this honor against Sir Tolgrith, as the knight has been the biggest motive force in establishing the settlement here.
I'm sure Percival can find a way; he has good stewardship skills, and Tolgrith hates politics (as he said), which stewarding the vale will surely need. Inviting his wife Emma to join him, Percival will relocate from Korvosa to the Vale.
Regarding internal policy--
Settlers: We encourage more settlers to land in the area from Korvosa and Nirmathas and dwarven traders from the south, and enforce quotas on hunting, mining, lumber-jacking, and general resource extraction to stay responsible.
Culturally: We formulate a narrative that amalgamates traditional Abadarian trade and Erastilian personal affairs law, with a strong social responsibility and justice bent, and will term it Frontier Law, and propagate the philosophy to reach out across religious lines. Thinkers of both religions and druids will find something to relate to regarding it, and we (and they) will propagate in the region from Varisia to around Encarthen as a whole. This is inspired by Anthuria's "A road can exist alongside a brook" quote.
Security and Authority: We have three effective forces in the vale: The Hellknights under Jetta (or around Jetta, if a higher-rank officer appears), the mobility-focused scouting force under Balthus, and the guard of Fort Thorn. For the near future, the scouting force and guard will be prime focuses for development (since the Hellknights are independent). Beyond that, the dwarven settlement in the south will surely also provide security for its caravans and traders, who can work in conjunction with the guard and scouts to protect the trading routes. We (as the party) may also go out personally to put down higher-level threats, relying on the scouts to identify and locate them before they act.
Naturally, the law in the vale follows Chelish and then Frontier law.
Nation-building: Out of the free lands, we will carry on the tradition of Chelish bureaucracy (making barons, establishing market overseers, etc) and landing allies with noble titles (such as other party members, beyond knighthood), and entrenching competent stewards and traders and diplomats in positions of power to make a sustainable system, with the understanding that we only choose to elevate those who have proven themselves and understand the deals we struck in the Vale. With the fort as the central area (due to its position), we begin the development of a larger settlement that fits our needs that is in tune with the wilderness (structurally) and to serve trading interests (organizationally).
Economically: We will focus on serving as a regional market between the western coasts of Varisia and Lake Encarthen, before branching off to cottage industries locally and financing them via the Bank of Abadar (.
Regarding foreign policy, there are several concerns.
Molthune/Nirmathas Wars: We are aware that Molthune will probably see the Vale as a lifeline for Nirmathans against their own efforts to enforce land blockades, but will retain Korvosa's neutrality in foreign affairs regarding the two countries. Perry believes that Frontier Law might find many who adopt it in Nirmathas, making it a prime ideological partner to reach economically into Lake Encarthan, making the Vale even more prosperous.
Dwarf/Lizardfolk Tensions: We will probably manage to find a good deal to strike with the dwarves and have more authority to exercise with them, allowing the (originally two-destination road) to fork out a third, with Fort Thorn as the center hub, allowing for more prosperity for our people.
Hopefully, with this structure, we can sustain any deals we made with Oakbrow and other hermits, as well as not antagonize the good fey and lizardfolk, working harmoniously with one another. This way, our victories and influence in the region are far-reach and significant, and will serve to put a mark on the in-game world.
I think Jetta also wants the Chelish fort Vardak was using to have as a stronghold for her Hellknight forces. It's a little out of the way, though.
Beautifully written, Anthuria. Beautifully written.
+1 on this.
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I can see Balthus working with Percy and being in charge of the 'scouting force' of the area. In fact, I can see Balthus quickly tiring of taking care of his allotted plot of land and giving the land to some 'good folks' so they can make it prosper. So the old ranger wants to use old skills again.
Balthus loves the 'Frontier' and, "I'm gettin' too damn old for this. Gotta teach these here young 'uns how do it."
This 'post-Vale' situation would probably be very useful for RPing in the upcoming Iron Fang AP.
There. Not nearly as poetic as Anthuria's post, but it will do.
Thanks, but I disagree. Jetta's post is a terrific read :)!
Man I am going to have to compete with that! :)
You both have wonderful posts! Jettat do not be so hard on yourself! The writing fits her. Straight and to the point :)
I need to up pack a kitchen since I have been slacking but I will try to get something up either tonight or after work tomorrow.
Thanks! I just felt it was a bit dry in comparison, that's all.
Ooh, Order of the Vale sounds nice. Or Order of the Drake! :D
Yes, Perry, you can assume that Percival is successful in cementing his rise to governance and that he is able to enact the policies he wants. I'll leave it up to you as to the shape it takes - I'm purposely leaving conclusions in y'all's hands. You guys have been fantastic at building the world so far; I trust you to make a mutually satisfying wrap-up. :)
Good job, Perry! Everything is falling together so nicely... :)
I think I prefer Order of the Briar, personally. Order of the Thorn was taken, unfortunately.
I'll go ahead and put out a 24-hour warning for anyone to add in what they may desire before I go ahead and deactivate the campaign. Again, I can't thank you guys enough for this story we've made together - I couldn't have done it without you!
Sorry I have been a little lost on what I would actually want to do.
Snuck in a post!
It's thrilling to read a character's less happy ending, but darn if it doesn't make me feel sad. Bittersweet. Rest in peace, our beloved Mairen.
Nice post!
o7