GM Zahmahkibo's "Murder on the Throaty Mermaid"

Game Master Zahmahkibo

Heal aid another for Gilroy 1d20 - 1 ⇒ (2) - 1 = 1

Errr... could have been a sword, right?

Heal (Aid Another): 1d20 ⇒ 17

"No, no, far too small to be any sword I know of. The size and narrowness of the wound, as well as how they are clustered together, indicates a dagger or similar weapons."

Azeban supports Gilroy's conclusion, but adds no new discoveries.

Decide on the next area of the ship you would like to investigate.

We need to start interviewing the crew - find out who had the watch - who was off duty and on.

"Aren't we figuring that the elves on deck were a distraction so that another one or two of them could sneak in here and kill the ambassador, or is it really just a big coincidence?"

No coincidence there I think but our interviews will show much

"So then we shall check the crew's cabin first?"

"We can't rule out an inside job. The fact that the door was either unlocked with a key or left open indicates whoever it was was well-prepared for this task and had information beforehand."

Azeban takes some time to wrap Sephriel's body respectfully in what sheets he can find. "I'd suggest the first interviews to be with whoever was supposed to be awake or on watch at this time."

With no objections to Toshizo and Boram's suggestion, the party trundles off to the crew cabin--a rather short trundling, since it lies directly without the crime scene.

The cramped cabin is jammed full of rickety cots and theradbare hammocks and smells of dank, dank body odor. Each bunk has a small footlocker nearby where the occupants keep their personal belongings. While all members of the crew use this room, the only current occupant is the Throaty Mermaid’s medic, the Besmaran cleric Killik. The healer rests in his cot, staring into space, either ignoring or failing to notice your entrance.

"I will join in the questioning in case some are reluctant to answer. I tend to make people less reluctant..."

"Someone ask him questions. I'll check the footlockers, maybe I'll find the dagger that killed the ambassador, or at least some clues." Boram checks each footlocker for traps.
Perception: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (10) + 8 = 18
If a trap is found.
Disable Device: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (11) + 8 = 19

"Right," Gilfroy says, going up to the man, planting his hands on his hips and looking up at his face.

"Hello. I was wondering what you could tell us about what happened in there. How long have you been in this room, and were you here when the sea elves were trying to board the ship?

Diplomacy: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (6) + 13 = 19

Your help will be most helpful - It will reflect well on you and ship if you assist us

Aid Another for Gilfroy 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (2) + 9 = 11

While they ask the healer questions, Azeban stays behind and looks around the room with a discerning eye for anything of note.

Perception: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (9) + 6 = 15

When the man replies, Azeban attempts to ascertain his truthfulness.

Sense Motive: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (7) + 6 = 13

The scruffy priest rolls over in his bunk to face Gilroy and Toshizo. He snorts phlegmatically.

"I like me reflection best in gold," he snips. "An' I'm losin' investments every moment I'm jawin' with yer crowd." The Besmaran pauses a moment. His fingers twitch in succession, as if counting off.

"Ten," he spits. "Each. But I expect you'll find my words worth more'n double."

Boram does not detect any traps on any of the lockers.

So 10 from me and 10 from my short friend here is it?.

He turns himself away from the man and weighs his purse carefully and then pulls out 10 gold coins.

10 is here. He lays the gold just out of arms reach.

Now, please, share, and the coin is yours.

"An' the rest o' your lot," Killik nods to the rest of your party.

Social skills will usually avail further options during this scenario.

Thats a fair whack of coin - and while I don't doubt you have some good information I do not think it is worth a retirement fund - I propose 20 gold coin. It is more than a hefty sum of change for information and profit enough. Here is 10 now. We will give you 10 when you have shared.

Diplomacy (Haggle) 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (6) + 9 = 15

*sigh*

Gilfroy pulls out his own set of ten coins and shows the man.

"Surely you'll agree that this is the best option. How many days' pay is that already? The captain seemed pretty upset by this series of events. I'd hate for him to find out that one of his own crewmates could have the knowledge to solve the mystery and chose to keep it to himself out of greed. After all, if we can't definitively tell the Spire Elves what happened, they'll probably run us all through."

Diplomacy (with just a hint of a threat in there): 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (2) + 13 = 15

Stepping in front of his companions the half-orc growls menacingly, "I don't deal with your kind in gold. I deal in blood. The question is how much you will keep. Now talk!"

Intimidate: 1d20 + 10 ⇒ (16) + 10 = 26

Still keeping his voice sweet and friendly, Gilfroy says, "Oh dear. Now you have a choice of deals. Which will you choose, ours or his?"

Heh!

"Alright alright, keep yer pittance," the cleric grumbles.

"That's why we don't keep his kind around," he mutters, gesturing to the half-orc, "hostility to honest entrepreneurship."

"I was dozing in my bunk, but I heard a sort o' scuttling sound coming round about the time o' the murder. Musta been that rat who stowes in the for'ard cargo hold. Thinks he's hidden, but we just keep 'im around to keep out the rest o' the vermin." He scratches his ear contemplatively. "Aye, never know what those kin are capable of. Who could say why'd he have a grudge against the elf?"

"Rat?" Azeban prompts, hoping the cleric follows the leading question.

While the others have the cleric busy, Boram starts opening footlockers.

Orik is still standing watch and searching the dead elves. It's been long enough, that he starts pacing around and shifting his weight from one foot to the other, impatiently.

"Blasted gud fer nothin' Pathfinders! Laeve a pur dwarf oot 'ere all aloone while they start noosin' inta ever' damn thin' under t'deck. Mae guess is they fergit all 'bout pur Oorik oop 'ere standin' guard dooty jes' like they askt. Sorry lot, all o'em." he mumbles to himself.

Who is this 'rat' you speak of?

The cleric gazes back dully from his slowly swaying bunk.

"Ye've been on the ship weeks now," he sighs, "surely ye've seen that rat man skulkin' about. He keeps in the for'ard cargo hold, like I said. Thinks he's a clever one no doubt, but the whole crew knows about him. He's the one what jiggered your elf, I'd bet my-"

The exact content of Killik's wager is interrupted by a burst of energy from the foot of the bunk. Boram, in attempting to pick the cleric's footlocker, has set off a well-hidden defense.

Boram's Will save: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (1) + 3 = 4
Inflict Light Wounds trap: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (3) + 1 = 4

Boram takes 4 damage.

A bolt of negative energy rattles the halfing and draws the attention of his would-be mark.

"Ha! Serves ye right," Killik spits down, "ship's just full o' you thievin' types. You an' that rat will get along real nice."

"Gah!" Boram yelps as he gets stung by the spell, then starts trying to unlock the footlocker.
Disable Device: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (13) + 8 = 21

"You'd bet? In other words, you have no idea, but the mysterious stowaway makes a convenient patsy, so you'll blame him. Worthless! And for this 'valuable' information, you wanted 60 gold pieces? And you call us thieves!? Take your 20 and be grateful we don't jigger you for the bother of it all."

Orik stomps down to where the others are below decks, leaving the bodies of the attacking elves for the moment. He stand by watching and waiting, tapping his foot, impatiently.

Felinros stands glowering making sure that Killik behaves.

Let us find this 'Rat' then... where is he?

I'll open the gameplay thread a few days before the official event start.

Misc. Procedural Info
To keep up a pleasant pace, I will be rolling for the party any opposed checks and saves. All proactive rolls will be left to the players, but I may provide prompting for specific skills now and then. If you cast a spell or employ an effect that offers a saving throw, please provide the DC in your post.

If your build includes any immediate spells, re-roll granting effects or other out-of-turn abilities, such as Saving Finale, Improved Iron Will, or Step Up, please let me know in advance so that I can make appropriate adjustments to the publication of rolls.

In combat, if any player has not posted within a day and a half of the last GM update, I will default to what I deem a reasonable course of action, based on circumstances and past behavior, that does not exhaust any non-trivial consumables. Out of combat, after a full day with no activity, I will proceed under the assumption the missing player(s) agrees to follow the current course.

If you predict that you will be unable to post for a day or two and inform us before hand, I will be willing to extend the window. You may also designate another player to dictate your character's actions during a brief absence with whatever license you wish to allow.

Everyone feel free to provide conditional directions, especially in combat, to a reasonable degree of specificity. Otherwise, actions within an initiative block will be resolved in the order they are posted, and delay actions will be assumed where it matters.

Consider me dotted.

Dot, though I don't think it will show up on the campaign tab until the gameplay thread is dotted.

Hello, everyone! And Toshizo! It's you again! :D I see you're a bard now.

Yeah - the Tien Katana Cleric thing was filled by another character I made and didn't want two of them.

I ummed and ahhed over what to do with the character - Samurai just didn't seem to hit the spot but I really couldn't change the characters name after 100+ posts so figured why fight it? A Tien bard can be groovy, add in Arcane Duelist and you have the Martial bent. I figure Exotic Weapon Katana at level 3 and I have a Katana wielding Bard... not many of those out there. I may take a dip level in Samurai as well but I think Bard is fun.

Actually.... given we haven't started play yet, and the guy is still level 1 until he starts and is locked in I may take that dip level now.

Will sleep on it.

Azeban and I go back a ways to first steps 1,2 and 3 when they were still legal.

Edit: Nah. Will be a bard 2 and just take the feat or the dip level at 3rd.

Sounds good. If anyone decides they would rather field a different PC, or wants to take a 1st-level rebuild before we start, that's totally fine.

Mind if we use this time to buy equipment and spend PP? I didnt need a wand of CLW before in his cleric incarnation.

dwarven dot

Go for it, Helaman. The scenario will begin in medias res when you've already been several weeks at sea, but I'll give everyone another chance to have provisioned themselves before locking things down.

Do me a favour if you could - at the end of the session do record these on the chronicle.

A lot of GMs on PbP - including myself on occassion, don't input purchases - Its a real pain keeping my own logs after that. I've one character who's going to take me about an hour to sort out thanks to a bunch of games online and a few P&P sessions. Lots of confusion because some of my P&P chronicles have the data recorded and my online chronicles are clean as whistles.

In any case.

2pp Wand of CLW
2pp on a MW +3 Str Darkwood Composite Shortbow (Value 75 for base, 225 for +3, 300 MW and 20gp for the darkwood) [Within the 750gp limit]
300gp MW weapon cast on Katana (so at least now I can use it as a +1 to hit)
5gp Musical insrument
210gp MW Leather Lamellar armour.

Sell Leather Lamellar armour (30gp)

- I'll adjust my profile in a bit

any chance we can open the game play thread to dot it?

And back to Vanilla Bard.

I just found out that they just released chronicles for the Carrion Crown AP, which I'm a part of. I plan on having it apply to Azeban since he's the only one of my characters within the level range, but this will bump my character to level 3, if that's fine, GM?

I can still use it on another character, of course, if you'd prefer to keep Azeban at level 2.

Also, Azeban spent 2pp on purchasing a Wand of Infernal Healing which hasn't been recorded.

That's fine, Azeban.

I'll open the Gameplay thread this weekend, once I've had a chance to write up a proper introduction. Once I do, please delete your posts after dotting to keep things uncluttered.

As far as recording purchases--honestly, putting digital Chronicles together is a bit of a pain already, especially without a full Acrobat license. I know the recordkeeping woes from my own characters, but it makes more sense to me to let the players record their own purchases in their preferred manner.

re-dotting

Received the PDF, will open Gameplay soon.

Gameplay is open for dotting.

Should we do actions directly related to faction missions in spoilers?

So we're going to be doing the faction missions for credit even though they aren't required anymore? Or are they just for color?

I really should have purchased this earlier, but better late then never.

I'll buy a Pathfinder Pouch as well as supplementary items to put into it along with my more . . . questionable items.

I wasn't aware that the missions weren't required anymore. When did that happen?

Season 5 (August 2013) guidebook did away with faction missions to earn the second Prestige Point. INstead each scenario has a Secondary Success Condition that if completed earns the second point. These Secondary conditions may not always be told to the players ahead of time.

Earning Prestige Each scenario provides the opportunity for you to earn 2 Prestige Points over the course of the adventure. These Prestige Points are tied to the completion of your mission, and are outlined in the Success Conditions section of the adventure. One of these conditions should be obvious at the start of a scenario, while the second may require creative thinking or may become apparent as the story progresses

Yup, there it is. And I also believe there is a blog back in September about it, too. I will see if I can find it again.

EDIT: Found it

Secondary Success Conditions At the onset of Season 5, the means by which characters earned Prestige Points changed dramatically. No longer was fame tied to performing faction missions, but rather its award would be tied to secondary success conditions—"secret" missions that were tied to going above and beyond the primary success condition or seeking out additional, perhaps unforeseen ways to further the goals of the Pathfinder Society. As part of this change, we retired the existing model of faction missions, but the earlier scenarios did not have any secondary success conditions established already as replacements.

I'm pleased to announce that we will have the Secondary Success Conditions—all 126 of them—available for download. After considering how best to distribute these, we decided it would be best to make the entire file available for download instead of adding an extra file to each download. I recognize that this makes it easier for the unscrupulous to peek at the secondary missions, but it also makes it far less onerous for GMs to acquire the updates all at once. I'm trusting the community to use this resource responsibly.

I will post the link here and it is at the top of the page.

As said in the Recruitment post, Murder on the Throaty Mermaid is a special case. The otherwise-outdated faction missions have been preserved as the new Secondary Success Conditions. Every faction has two parts to their mission, and you or your faction mates must complete both to receive the extra prestige point.

Sorry I missed that spoiler in Recruitment. So be it! Retro faction missions it is.

I did too, sorry.

No worries. I had an inkling that not everyone had read the entire most when post people missed the special condition.

Gilroy - Please add a quick stat bar in to the race/class line in your profile. Boram's is a good example.

Orik - Please add Initiative, Perception, and SM to your quick stats.

Orik's stat line should be updated now.

Crap has hit the fan with work. Will post as best I can for the next 48-72 hours. Please bear with me.

entering my peak 'in the s&@+' zone. Will be flaky for the next 24 hrs. I did call out I'd be iffy for the next 72 hours about 2 days ago

No worries, thanks for letting us know.

I'll be traveling and without forum access starting around noon Saturday to evening Sunday (EST).

I am due to fly o/seas on short notice for a project - I will have delayed posting for the next 3 days. I hope this does not equal 'No posting' and will try to put something up.

Sick today ... Bear with me

Did we lose our GM?

I hope not. Business travel, wife hieing off to Europe and sickness caused a drop in posting. Will be online again soon.

Sorry, had company in town while dealing with home repairs and a tree service that destroyed my lawn. Back to normal schedule now.

Curious if this game is now defunct? Two DM posts in May are not a very hopeful sign.

yep

What steps would we have to take if the game is defunct? Would we have to get ahold of a different GM to take over or does the scenario just get scrapped?

Dunno. I think we likely disband and are able to re-play the scenario. I will send an email to the online VC's who put the PbP gameday together.

Bummer. Thanks for taking the lead Orik.

Email sent to the Online VO's. I could shift to running this, but I don't own the scenario...Waiting to see what they reply back with, if anything.

I haven't bought it either but I do have access to it, so I could run it figuratively. Never GMed before. It would be better to get someone else to join and be the GM.

Here is the response back from Jesse Davis the organizer for the PBP gameday event:

"We contacted the GM - we'll let you know what we find out here soon. If we do not hear back from him soon we will work something out.

Sorry about that"

Thanks for the heads up!

Thanks!

Sorry, guys - we tried to contact the GM a couple of times but have not received a response.

What would you guys like to do at this point?

You only made it to the first encounter, so you can walk away from it as if you had not played it - or - we can try and find a replacement GM for you guys to finish it out if we can.

Just let us know what you would like to do.

If you can, please email us at PFSOnlineVOs@GMail.com after you decide so we can make sure we do not miss your decision.

Sorry about that again - know it is frustrating to lose a GM in the middle of a game.

- Jesse [IronHelixx]

Here is the response back from Jesse Davis the organizer for the PBP gameday event:

"We contacted the GM - we'll let you know what we find out here soon. If we do not hear back from him soon we will work something out.

Sorry about that"

So, what do you guys say? I could go either way.

Either way.

I'm out.