Any chance of picking a non-box avatar? I know it's important to her, but it helps me picture the character.
I actually second that. I rather prefer faces myself as well.
I agree with the others, and while you are at it, if you could name one actor or well known person that you think your character looks like as well as a good "theme song" what would it be?
Welcome Drisella.
Got a vomiting three year old daughter, should be okay by tomorrow. I haven't had a chance to check out the new recruit but I trust you guys on this.
Cheers
I'll have to really dig through the icons again. I couldn't find a single one that looked even remotely appropriate and I didn't want an inappropriate icon making people's mental association of the character be incorrect. But if you'd prefer something else be up there I'll try to find a passable icon today.
As for an actress, probably a younger Zooey Deschanel would get the appropriate doe-eyed appearance.
For theme songs do you prefer thematically/aesthetically appropriate instrumental pieces or contemporary music with lyrics?
As an aside I'm really excited to join this group. I'd been wanting to get into a good Way of the Wicked campaign with creative players and a good DM for a while, and this is exactly what I was looking for. I'm really thankful to Celeador for letting me join up. Getting to do two things I've never really done outside of GMing: Play an evil character and play a summoner!
Triple post as I think of things:
One of the core concepts I have for this character is her perceptive morality. While her eidolon is whispering "sweet" nothings in her ear about the way she should act, what she sees everyone else in the party doing will help inform her decisions. She's still young and impressionable, and while strong of will she still absorbs concepts and ideas and amalgamates them into herself.
So, in part, Dris' will be a creature that is half made from her past and her own preconceptions of the world, and half made up of the party members' influence. What they see as acceptable will gradually become her norm.
She might be a little wild and savage appearing at first, but she's more a delicate canvas that needs the right brush pressure to make into a proper piece of art. Press too hard and the canvas breaks, press too lightly and the paint wipes right off.
I'm going to go through and familiarize myself with your previous posts now so I have a frame of reference for things.
Hope to see you soon :)
Drisella,
To echo the comments of others I know that the Chelish crux plays a key role in your development but I would like to see an actual character icon. I think that Zooey Deschanel is a great choice and the music can be anything you think fits your character. Take a look at the first few pages to get a feeling for the other characters.
For the rest of the group, I encourage you to keep exploring. It looks like you want to attempt to lure the guard on the western wall away from the ramparts, I'll give you all another twenty four hours or so to post any responses to that plan before make the rolls and describe the scene.
Whew, no one saw my icon accident. Accidentally clicked on a totally horrible one and saved it without realizing. This one is about as close as I can get.
I've been checking in, wondering if I can get someone else besides Barnabas to chime in before posting again.
If nobody has posted in a few hours when I check later tonight, I'll post Kaynen heads back out to the western wall and tries his honeyed tongue yet again.
Eventually a crossbow bolt will hit him for 10 damage and his tricks will end.
I think it's worth trying. I think at least 2 people should go in case the bluff fails and you have to fight. Maybe Barnabas or Mikhail.
That is what that last Charm Person is for!
On the bright side, if together, one of us can assist the other's Bluff to tell the guard that it's chow-time.
Hey Drisella, I saw your update as a red mantis =p. Keep in mind two people going out equals an additional chance to fail when he rolls perception against the disguise checks I have secretly been rolling with the -5 due to how long they have known each other for. Just saying.. you have been lucky so far but it could always run out.
Looks like you posted, lets see how this shakes out.[/ooc]
That's why I suggested Barnabas and Mikhail, since they also have disguise.
So tired... working on a post now. =D
Kaynen what did you have in mind for Tarker? It's not unreasonable that you can send him into the barracks to gather the other guard, but the moment they get to the doorway of the main hall they are going to know something is up. There is blood all over the place from the three guards killed there and it only gets worse if they go into the mess hall. You have turned the whole place into a butcher house. Just a warning that you probably won't be able to trap them inside the Main Hall the way you did the last set.
Out of curiosity, how many guards have we killed -or otherwise put out of commission- so far?
You have killed or incapacitated fourteen of the twenty-four guards. In the next few days the town of Varyston will mourn the loss of so many good men. Wives will grieve and children will ask when their daddies are coming home. The chapter house of Knights Alerion will begin a man hunt and no expense will be spared to track down the Butchers of Branderscar. Yes my friends.. you are off to an excellent start.
Is Tarker the last wall guard? Because if he is, the I say just CdG him. I don't think we should push our luck anymore with the ambushes in the main keep. with the walls cleared, we can hit up the warden's tower and then worry about the remaining guards. As an added bonus, the 3/4 of our group that are spellcasters wont have to worry about concentration checks anymore.
Tarker is the last guard on the wall. Unless someone randomly decides to move from the Gate House to the Great Hall or from the second barracks to use the bathroom or go somewhere else you have essentially cleared the courtyard. Things can always happen though...
@Drisella: I finished your intro post feel free to start posting in the gameplay thread!
@Divineshadow: Thank you very much for the compliment! We have a great group of players here. =D
Sorry guys! I'm a little indisposed right now, I'll be posting tomorrow!
Sorry about causing a slow down. I'm back now so feel free to post away!
Man that post took me forever to write. There's alot of stuff going on in that 1st floor. Enjoy!
Yes, wow it was a whopper!
I devoured it like a starving man.
To the question in the gameplay thread:
Typically animal companions/eidolons act on their own initiative, eidolons even more so since they're independently intelligent. However for the sake of convenience I can always just have Walker go on Drisella's turn when both are involved in combat if it makes it easier. Whatever works best for you :)
Finally took some time to find some properly thematic songs for Drisella and the Walker in Darkness:
Walker has a higher initiative bonus then you so I don't want to penalize you for that. We can have them act separately. Since you made a second profile it should be easy to keep track of. I have updated my dice rolling aid for both of you.
Walker has a higher initiative bonus then you so I don't want to penalize you for that. We can have them act separately. Since you made a second profile it should be easy to keep track of. I have updated my dice rolling aid for both of you.
On another note, there is a specific format I ask the other players to use when posting actions during a combat. It is on page one of the discussion thread. Please take a look at it. I like to keep everything nice and uniform, it makes large combats with 7+ players easer to track.
I really appreciate you letting me into this campaign, Cel. It's been a welcome distraction this week. I was born in a suburb of Boston, have friends and family there, and live not far away now. So all the crazy, crazy stuff that has been going on this week has been affecting me pretty badly. I was woken up by a panicked call from a friend early this morning who heard the gun battle with police/the bomber outside their apartment and now the whole city is on lockdown... it's just insane.
Being able to think about something else and lose myself in a great pbp has been a huge help.
I'm really sorry to hear that Lucent, I have been following the news and it's just horrible. =/ I'm praying for everyone there...
In a much lighter note, I'll have an update done in the next few hours. It looks like you are moving onto the second floor so I'll be describing it next.
Once again the dice gods step in to ruin my well laid plans! I swear it was a crit! BAH! I'll adjust it accordingly.
Yikes. This guy means business. At least Grumblejack will be back in commission soon.
Welp good luck folks, I'm out for the count.
@Barnabas: Sorry Barnabas, color spray is a harsh spell at low levels. I rolled randomly but that's how the dice fell. In a tabletop it wouldn't be so bad but in a pbp it sucks that player's can't take part in combat. Feel free to post some sort of color spray induced dream sequence though... Oh and that magic mouth spell? Want to guess where I learned that trick from? =P
@Kaynen: The warden did a FRA while you were in the library to summon a small air elemental. As soon as it appeared at the start of his initiative he was free to act for the "surprise round" and did so by casting color spray. The air elemental appeared 5' above you thanks to its flight and the high ceiling. That +6 on the to hit roll was without any bonuses.
@Mikhail: *nod* The Warden may be a lazy and poor excuse for a prison administrator but he's serious when it comes to putting you down. If you had killed Tarker in a way that his familiar had not been able to see then he would only be trying to take you prisoner again. Now that he knows you killed at least one guard, the kid gloves have come off.
@Drisella: I'll be making a post in the main thread when is the Wardens turn, but it will take you two rounds to reach the library. You would arrive at the start of round three. The others are going to need your help and I thought that you and Walker arriving at a key moment might give the other Forsaken a good reason to accept you into their dark fellowship. Hey, it's not the scene you wanted with Walker in Darkness dropping from the ceiling behind you, while you stand on top of a pile of mutilated bodies, gazing at the group with unfocused eyes, but I gotta draw the line somewhere =P
@Avvy: I think this will be a fine replacement, Dris is planning to go on a Carrie-style murder spree right now, so with practically everyone else in the prison dead, "up" to the Warden makes perfect sense.
What is the creature in the artwork called? By artwork, I mean the one you used as a template for the Walker in Darkness.
Good thing he doesn't know about all the rest of the poor dead guards and cooks, then.
Actually, I do believe the cooks are still alive. At least, if memory serves.
@Castor: That's the steel predator from one of the 3.5 D&D monster manuals.
Correct, Gregor Merik and Irena Merik are alive as well as Lorin Terrik. They were placed into a prison cell on the 2nd floor of the Great Hall. See a list of Branderscar Prison NPC's you have encountered for a summery. It is on the information page.
Great avatar for Walker. Looks like we might need it. If we can just get through his next attacks it will be our time and that warden will need all those pretty protections.
Kherg seems to have been relegated to NPC on the character profile above. AoM, can you move him back so that he is my default for this game again?
DM - slightly left field but is it possible to use a villain point to help someone else? Like for a new save, stabilisation roll or the like? In the longer term I can see Kherg taking his contract literally to keep the others alive (or half-alive in one case).
Cheers
@Kergh: Sorry about the NPC status Kergh, it's been fixed. Hrm... as far as using your villain point to help another character I'm afraid it would upset the game balance. Right now you only have 1 point that can be used on you. If I allowed you to use them on someone else then the villain point would become a villain pool. You can use a point on a roll toward a +8 bonus on your heal check to stabilize one of the other Forsaken. You could also use it to ready an action in order to get ahead of the Warden on initative. In Ariana's case even though she is now a NPC she could have used it to re-roll her save. (I'll go ahead and do a re-roll when I write my next post.) Anyhow what I'm saying is that villain points aren't a 100% save, but they do give you that extra chance. I still want there to be some risk.
Oh and on that note, I just want to remind you, that you had Tarker in your grasp. How do you think the Warden would have delt with a guard that he knew who was trying to kill him... *evil grin* You just had to go and kill him though!
@Everyone: I was thinking about this earlier today and I forgot to mention it in my last post. I know this first portion has been a pretty self contained sandbox and very combat heavy. Because of that I think that some of the posts have started to decrease in size. Frankly, aside from Grumblejack there’s very little NPC interaction going on right now. Once you get out of Branderscar I hope we can change that a bit. My intent is for the next chapter to be more roleplay focused. You all have such great stories and I look forward to watching them develop. Sound good?
Well assuming we don't have a TPK in the making here, that sounds good to me.
Sounds good to me, too.
FYI, I'm on vacation starting today through Thursday, so if Kaynen holds up combat, feel free to post an action for him.
The warden did a FRA while you were in the library to summon a small air elemental. As soon as it appeared at the start of his initiative he was free to act for the "surprise round" and did so by casting color spray. The air elemental appeared 5' above you thanks to its flight and the high ceiling. That +6 on the to hit roll was without any bonuses.
Ah, I was asking the question less out of wanting to know the crunch detail, and whether or not we were able to post any combat actions (i.e. was that a surprise round AND a round 1 that you posted?)
I *think* the actions you posted were only surprise round actions, and not round 1 actions. Thus, the only person that needs to act before another GM post is Oswald.
That's where my confusion came in - whether or not the warden moved and cast (and thus we could infer he made his round 1 action and we were free to post), or only his surprise action has been posted (and thus we're waiting still on the warden's round 1 action for us to post our actions).