Jelani's Colonization:Aspis Rising (Inactive)

Game Master Brian Minhinnick

Sense i am not around all the time. Nim will translate anything that he does not consider rude or ill advised. That way I don't hold things up.

In that case, Jelani, do you want to use mine or Nim's diplomacy roll? I assumed it'd be Nim's as the one actually talking, but your call.

Penance made a diplomacy roll?

...

*mutters at the boards*

...No, I hadn't, because I thought Nim was going to, etc. However, I was also not aware that you had now done that, heh, because for some reason the boards weren't showing me that the Gameplay thread has updated like 10 times since my last post, so I was under the (incorrect) assumption that we were still back at the moment of greeting, waiting on a dice roll from either Penance or Nim.

Sorry about that. *goes to catch up*

Lol, if you want to know what Hmong sounds like (and what I imagine goblin sounding like, dunno why), you can check out this short and cheesy video clip.

Hmong people

While the dragon seems a bit much, CR 11 at least, it is not undoable depending on the conditions. That being said I would not mind a smaller power gap between us and said challenge. So I would vote to pass on the dragon at this time and see if their is something or someone else we can deal with. After all if the dragon is powerful enough to hold it's territory when it was a juvenile then their have to be smaller fish to fry. Or so I hope. xP

If it were still a juvenile (CR 9), I could see it being doable. Seven 5th level characters, plus two that can hit on touch AC. A Young Adult Green Dragon, though has DR5/magic and SR 22, which really beef it up against us right now.

Maybe we can secure an agreement to deal with the dragon in exchange for some land now and access to trade, which we will need to stabilize first. Bit of a Hong Kong arrangement.

Keep in mind how quickly you guys are leveling as well. A handful more encounters could net you a level or two. You are 4.4 rounds of combat from level 6. Then I'll probably kick it up to 750 XP per round of combat, making you about 11 rounds from level 6 to level 7. That assumes I don't give out any other XP awards as well. Things like diplomatic accomplishments, exploring hexes, etc.

It wouldn't be like "Okay! Lets go fight the dragon in five minutes!"

We still will want some guarantee of security and a place to establish ourselves. But I could see an agreement to try to track down and kill the dragon in the next month.

Well then talk to him. Emerion has offered to translate. Or at least talk amongst yourselves and agree what you will and won’t do if you want to continue going through Nim.

Just to be clear Iliante and his player are not against fighting the dragon or any meta-gaming that that decision entails. He was only pointing out the fallacy in logic of that request.

Iliante understands that he is not diplomatic and has taken his usual position of first mate (adviser) to the captain, whomever that would be... lots of chiefs and not many indians here...

Besides fighting dragons is what D&D is all about. We should just strive for a better deal...

cheers

If we choose to fight the dragon it's going to take time. Emerion can, with resources and help, make a number of dragon fighting goodies.

If we choose not to fight the dragon just yet I would think that our good Khaan has other less impressive if more numerous enemies.

Guys, if we slay the dragon, screw the hobgoblin, we set camp in the lizard's LAIR and become new overlords.

I vote we says yes, with caveats that it is not our first and immediate task and we might need time to prepare, this means don't attack us while we explore hexes around here.

EDIT: also, a clarification on Telemakos: he is a spoiled little man, and his approach to this expedition is that of a Tarzan villain - let us civilized people come and conquer the savage land!

Nim - I was thinking about the crafting thing the other night. I will allow you to craft some magical items now. You need to make a case that the raw materials would be available to you. So Cloak of Resistance? Fine, it's just some cloth and fancy stitching etc. Something that would require forged metal parts, or rare wood, or harp strings etc. would be a no go until you get access to those things.

I'm all for killing the dragon at some point, naturally. Not so much sold on the idea that we kill the thing then give the Khaan some of the lands (unless they actively contribute to killing the dragon in some way, in which case that's totally kosher).

Well, OOCly, he's thinking that you are too few to settle all the dragon's land by yourselves. He has slaves that could farm part of the land and share the proceeds. The hilly land around their home is not good for farming. I'm sure that will come out with further discussion.

So Devram isn't in the negotiations. That was a decision on my part, which means you don't even need to consider his thoughts.

As a player, however, I'm up for this bit of There and Back Again. I echo Shinjuko in asking if we do kill the Dragon, why would we even need to give land to the Khaan? Now it might be smart to come to an agreement to do it so he'll give us time and perhaps even some supplies for the attempt. But if we kill the dragon, we would become major players on the island. We might just find other friends with good offers too. Perhaps we can use that to help him sweeten the pot for us. After all, it would be a relatively small investment on his part (supplying us) with a huge payout if we win (eliminate a hated enemy, not have to pay tribute anymore, and possibly gain some land)

So Devram isn't in the negotiations. That was a decision on my part, which means you don't even need to consider his thoughts.

As a player, however, I'm up for this bit of There and Back Again. I echo Shinjuko in asking if we do kill the Dragon, why would we even need to give land to the Khaan? Now it might be smart to come to an agreement to do it so he'll give us time and perhaps even some supplies for the attempt. But if we kill the dragon, we would become major players on the island. We might just find other friends with good offers too. Perhaps we can use that to help him sweeten the pot for us. After all, it would be a relatively small investment on his part (supplying us) with a huge payout if we win (eliminate a hated enemy, not have to pay tribute anymore, and possibly gain some land)

Can't agree more. We say yes, and try to squeeze as much as we can from the deal. What happens once we actually move against the dragon, and if we manage to slay him, that's a whole different story.

I'm possibly being too cautious here, but here's my position on it: however tough we as a party are individually, as last night proved, we cannot efficiently defend a hundred or so NPCs and all of our cargo (aka, our BP), from mass raid attacks. We as the PCs will (probably) survive a lot of things the Khaan and other enemies can do to us, but.... that's not our only consideration here.

If half our BP, or half our manpower, gets torched by a mass raid, that significantly effs up and delays our ability to get going and pursue our overall goals here.

We're negotiating here from a position of relatively little strength, unless people are seeing advantages I'm not. Our camp cannot survive another coordinated, large-scale raid in my opinion, even if we as the PCs can. The Khaan may prefer us to be allies, but if we get too grabby on our side of the bargain and piss him off too much, I don't think he'll hesitate too much to order ongoing raids and make our lives supremely difficult, even if that's only by ongoing guerilla warfare that would be very hard for us to put a stop to, but would whittle away our forces and gear.

That means that to me, our first priority is buying a window of time in which our men and BP can be promised no further attacks.

A month is forever in game time. We've leveled up a LOT in the course of what... several days of in-game time?

In-character, I'm not wildly overjoyed by the idea of making promises only to intend to break them for immediate gain. I get that we're playing Aspis Consortium, but seriously: that's bad business. Word will spread on the island if we start breaking bargains. We'll be known as the outsiders who make you sweet promises only to break them. So unless we intend to seriously start out on a campaign of just killing every single enemy we run across, we do need to think about making long-term alliances that we intend to honor.

And we're making an alliance right here with a guy who has every right to see us as invaders of his land. We do not have the upper hand in this negotiation, as I see it, because of the aforementioned vulnerability of our business interests (NPCs, and BP). I think it's unrealistic to expect to get to dictate as many terms as we like.

Meanwhile, if we include the clause about 'determining exact land split at a later date, to be determined by test of arms' .... again, we're going to have leveled up by that point, presumably. We're also going to have killed a flipping dragon for that circumstance to come about. I don't doubt that most of us would be able to deal, one-on-one, with any purely martial champion the hobgoblins set forth.

As for the fact that it doesn't cost anything to the Khaan to let our men stay here: no, it doesn't. That's why it's a deal he's likely to agree to. It gives us a MONTH of relative security, and it doesn't force him to lose face or admit what he thinks of as intruders.

I'm just really leery of us taking a "no, we want more" tone in this early negotiation, and missing the forest of a long-term alliance for the trees of current-gain. We're not going to get everything we want out of a negotiation, guys, especially when we don't really have a strong upper hand from which to deal. The Khaan has that upper hand, because he has numbers and superior training of his men to ours.

If I'm the only person who feels this way, then, obviously, group rule wins out, but, eh, shrug.

I used to negotiate for a living and have no desire to role-play a really involved one. That's why I'm letting others lead and enjoying the story.

However, I would like to make two points and then let this go on my part:

1. Please don't think "we don't have the upper hand." That's defeatist. We have many advantages. I was going to write that we could kill the Khaan right now if we wanted, but a paladin would not go for that. Therefore, ignore this point.

2. Successful negotiations are all about understanding and giving something to someone who values it much more than you do and receiving something from someone who values it much less than you do.

cheers

1. Please don't make the mistake of thinking Penance is a traditional shiny paladin. The GM has said over and over that alignment doesn't matter in this campaign. Penance would not go for killing the Khaan, but it's not because he's a paladin, it's because I think both ICly and OOCly it's a stupid thing to do.

Say we kill the Khaan. We just violated treaty. We then have to kill all his men. All of them. We have to trust that NONE of them escape back to their tribe to tell them that we are treaty-breakers. (Or that he didn't leave a man behind in the jungle to keep an eye out for the potential double-cross.)

That's a big risk. If ONE guy escapes back to the tribe with the news that we slaughtered their Khaan, we now have the entire tribe as enemies forever. We then spend the rest of our time here trying to either barricade right here, or dealing with constant guerrilla raids on our men and BP, or both. We also nuke the odds of forming an alliance with the orcs and possibly other people, because the word will spread that we sucker people in for a treaty and then we kill them.

My arguments are not coming out of morality, but out of the idea that it's a really stupid business practice to sucker people in with promises of peace and then kill people. It gets you short-term gain at the cost of long-term stability.

I am basing the idea that we do not have the upper hand on, again, the fact that it is very hard to defend our men under the current situation. Us as PCs? Yes. But we have a huge stationary target of people and resources that we cannot quickly move or defend. That puts us at a major disadvantage.

On traditional small-scale D&D combats (like fighting the Khaan and his current men), I give us lots of advantages. But that's small-scale, short-term. As I said, that's not our only consideration right now.

Can't make a detailed post right now. But I will say that Nim has never considered a double cross but he has also been careful not to promise anything the entire time. So currently their is nothing to lose as nothing has been agreed to. If we go after the dragon for the Khaan then we can talk terms after the fact, no need to do so before hand.

In-character, I'm not wildly overjoyed by the idea of making promises only to intend to break them for immediate gain. I get that we're playing Aspis Consortium, but seriously: that's bad business. Word will spread on the island if we start breaking bargains. We'll be known as the outsiders who make you sweet promises only to break them. So unless we intend to seriously start out on a campaign of just killing every single enemy we run across, we do need to think about making long-term alliances that we intend to honor.

Yeah, don't be like the Europeans in the New World. Unless you want to be as evil as white people in real life.

I was going to write that we could kill the Khaan right now if we wanted, but a paladin would not go for that. Therefore, ignore this point.

He is their most powerful warrior (he's significantly higher level than you). Not to mention the four second highest level warriors accompanying him right now (the red plumes, who you haven't fought yet). Trying to kill him would probably lead to at least one PC death in the immediate, plus all the results Penance predicted above.

I wasn't suggesting we double-cross him. In fact, I think we could come to an agreement that if he helps us over the month, he would have preferred trading status with us afterward. And yes, he could simply kill us now and be back to status quo. Except for whatever men he loses to us, of course, which leaves him weaker than before.

Maybe we don't have the upper hand, but we're also the wildcard no one but the Khaan knows about right now. He could use this to good advantage.

He wants to ally, clearly, or he would have just attacked instead of coming inside. I think we'll be able to work this out. Remember they don't even have writing. He's not going to try to trick you into some Asmodean contract. It's going to be a verbal agreement sealed with honor and non-magical ceremony which I'll reveal if we get to that point.

In the meantime, in an attempt to speed it up I'd like a formal OOC vote from everyone on Penance's proposal. If you say no, say why you said no and what you'd change. The more specific, the better.

If we are going after the dragon I would like to run something's pass the DM and everyone.

I think our first step should be scouting and research. We don't know where it's lair is so we need to find out. The Khaan just let us know that the dragon has minions/offspring in his territory so we need to see if they are running wild or organized in service/defense of the dragon.

P.S. No one needs anything crafted?

Edit- Sense I took to long to post now I must edit to cover the new one. xP

I say no. To the last part mostly. The Khaan is getting more then enough with the dragon gone for good. Not willing to give ownership of any land that we did all the work to get. As it was talked about earlier if they want to use our land for farming or what not because theirs is bad then that is fine. They can make an agreement with us for use, they can rent. But we own it as we wasted the beast. Also the whole champion clause, remove that too sense Emerion would never agree to it. It's to easy to take advantage of and force things your way regardless of proposed deals. You just say unacceptable! trial by combat, he wins he gets what he wants but if he loses then we go back to making a deal. Not to mention if the strongest guy is the Khaan then any lost would damage his position and end up insulting him or hurting his status. Things we do not want as it's counter productive for us as much as him. A number of unneeded considerations and problems come into play that we do not need.

I say no, too as is. I think the 30 day time limit is unnecessary. And ditto to Nim's comments on splitting the dragon wealth. If the Khaan helps by giving us guides/warriors and/or letting us use his tribute shipment to attack him, we could agree now on a division of the spoils. If its all on us, we take everything and negotiate land later with the Khaan.

If I'm not mistaken, the only reason Penance is asking for that specific amount of time is so we can get all of our assets (both manpower and goods) on shore. That way, if things go south, we'll have everything we need to either dig in or move on. Which I agree with.

For the most part, I can sign off on what's been outlined. The only snag I caught was the possibility of "Kill my foe for me and give me what it owns." Maybe showing a little generosity at this juncture will help cement our relationship, and server us in the future as we inevitably begin an expansionist campaign across the island. From the sounds of things, the dragon rules over a large bit of land (more than even our entire number can realistically hold?)

The dragon's hoard itself goes to us if we bring the thing down. Can we get them to at least agree that the lion's share of the land goes to us. If they are only asking for richer farmlands closer to their borders, I can sign off on that.

Also bear in mind, we are talking with what seems like an honorable might-makes-right sort of tribal culture. Penance's proposal struck me as speaking to them in their own language. They seem far more likely to respond favorably to "warriors" than bean counters.

I think we're actually sort of agreeing with each other...

I vote yes on the basic principle of agreeing to go deal with the dragon for the Khaan. I like the month timeline (see below though). I would ask the Khaan to help us with supplies (food, teach us about game and plants on the island, maybe a couple suits of armor for Nim to try and enchant later, and some of these riding lizards). In exchange, we agree to teach some of his people in writing, give him honorable trading status as an ally, and if we succeed in killing the dragon, he is able to request a portion land from the dragon's territory. I'd say a certain percentage, but we don't know how much land we're talking about and it would be meaningless to the chief anyway.

I vote no on the single combat idea. We can come up with a better plan for disputes afterward. I actually think if we succeed, we would have more land than we could effectively hold.

Regarding the month, I'm guessing a month is enough time finish securing the camp, make our way to the dragon's lands, scout and decide on how to attack or invade. But we don't really know how big this place is. If it's going to take us more than a month just to get there, then we need to modify this. But we should be able to ask the Khaan how long it would take to travel there.

So far, people's opposition seems to be centered on the issues of time limit, and dragon wealth/land issues.

I want to point out, those agreements would be you offering the Khaan something he didn't ask for. He didn't ask you to do anything other than kill the dragon. He's expecting that its more like if you guys come back from your dragon hunt alive, you can work out a deal about the land then.

The dragon's horde is yours. The hobgoblins don't use money, they have a subsistence and barter economy. If something is not directly useful, they don't really want it (aside from a few decorative items, obviously).

That being the case, I have no reservations with proceeding as is. Maybe thinning out the brood a bit whilst scouting would be a good plan for the interim leading up to omg-dragon-fight-time.

Pretty much what Devram and Shinjuko have already said. I vote yes on the majority of the plan/proposal (such as being given time to prepare/scout/etc, as well as working out a deal about the land with the hobgoblins; the latter, though, we should perhaps, as our DM said, leave for when we actually manage to liberate said land from the dragon). I do vote no on the single combat idea though; if push comes to shove, I am sure we can find some solution on the more diplomatic side, rather than which side has the stronger head-basher... :-P

I obviously vote yes on my own proposal. ;)

But Shinjuko is right: I specifically said 'a month' because it times us to when we get our next supplies/whatever. The only reason I'm suggesting a time limit at all is because if I were in the Khaan's position, just having an open-ended agreement to 'oh yeah we'll go kill the dragon for you..... sometime *vague*' would strike me as 'yeah, no' and I don't want to have his men in our faces every week going 'so why haven't you killed it yet? When are you going to go kill it?'

Setting a time window from the start just provides clear expectations on both ends. But, I'm not wedded to it. If people don't want a time limit, no time limit it is.

Regarding the land split/champion clause: I was under the impression the Khaan was already asking for a 50/50 split. If he's not being that precise, then I don't feel the need to try and give us a clause to use at that point. We can sort out exact distribution of lands after the fact, it seems.

I was already assuming we got the dragon's hoard, since the Khaan has made no mention of any physical wealth whatsoever.

Nim:

Balloon traps: I'm... having a hard time visualizing what you're talking about, honestly. You're proposing, like, hide constructs filled with lighter-than-air gases and rigged with... explosives? Spells? How big are you talking? How would you guide them? How would we maneuver easily through dense jungle that is supposedly crawling with dragon-spawn, to plant multiple of these? Do we have to leave someone at each balloon in order to trigger their release when the dragon flies overhead, and hope it manages to hit the dragon? Do we have a large supply of lighter-than-air gasses, which are an alchemical thing? Do we have anybody with Craft: Alchemy to produce a large supply of this gas? Basically I'm having absolutely no idea how you want to implement this.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I'm just saying it seems like an awfully complex idea to rig out of "supplies we brought with us". Our BP is 'unspecified goods', but it's... building supplies, by and large. I don't really think it would contain things like 'a large supply of helium-or-the-Golarion-equivalent'. If you have some of this stuff already thought out then by all means, explain further.

Magical armor: I appreciate the offer, but at the moment it's not a priority for me (I can divine-bond my weapon for magical, and a +1 bonus on my own armor, while certainly nice down the line, doesn't seem an immediate priority when there's a lot else we need to work on). Aside from that, I'm not really certain where we stand as far as money goes. I get that the GM said he'd permit you some crafting on a case-by-base basis if you can justify having the goods on hand, but I'm unclear on how I'm supposed to give you 1,000 GP worth of goods for the enchantment at this stage when all we have are a bunch of bows that we haven't officially decided to split into loot.

I vote yes, we agree to slay the dragon in a month, yes we keep the hoard, yes we negotiate about the dragon's lands after the beast is dead. In the meantime, the more the Khaan is ok to give us (moslty knowledge of the land, but also scouts would be nice) the better.

::Points to Dragonslayer's Handbook::

Balloon traps are not my idea, pathfinder made them up. The balloons have a thin metal strand attached and act like a vertical tripwire to be sprung. They are most effective against things with large wingspans like said dragon. As to how they work, pathfinder did not go into detail so I can't tell you. But they do fall under craft traps and all their rules as all traps do so sense I have the skill I can make them. Barring DM ruling that is.

________________________________________________________________________

So let me recap a bit.

Khaan wants us to kill the dragon, which will make us allies and give us our own land so we leave his. That is all he is asking right now.

Unless I am mistaken, I see no reason not to take it as is. No need to place time limits or considerations. Finding the lair alone may take a long time we do not know. If he has no issue then we should not bring it up or impose a rule upon ourselves which could harm us by making us break our word or force the Khaan into action.

Alas, don't own Dragonslayer's, and didn't find the Balloon Traps on the d20pfsrd, so I'll just have to leave that in your bailiwick.

He's going to want a time limit before you set out, but not necessarily to kill it. For example, "We can finish our preparations in a month, we'll leave to hunt the beast then."

^that sounds more reasonable. We have to find the lair, scout the defenses, and maybe deal with minions. Really would not want to face the dragon at anything less then 100% with some goodies.

I'll be away with little to no internet until Monday. Please feel free to DMPC me.

Penance, I just noticed you completed your story feat by dying during the battle in pursuit of building a new civilization.

"Penance - Die in pursuit of your faith's goals and be brought back to life. If you die in circumstances that don't involve your faith, you gain no benefit. If your GM permits, you can instead remain dead and create a new PC inspired by your heroic sacrifice."

So you can have the secondary effect of the feat from now on.

Penance, I just noticed you completed your story feat by dying during the battle in pursuit of building a new civilization.

"Penance - Die in pursuit of your faith's goals and be brought back to life. If you die in circumstances that don't involve your faith, you gain no benefit. If your GM permits, you can instead remain dead and create a new PC inspired by your heroic sacrifice."

So you can have the secondary effect of the feat from now on.

Holy cow, really? :D I'm not arguing, cuz that's awesome, but I would have assumed it wouldn't qualify since I did not actually die, but stabilized via Hero Points at -11, etc. But hey, never look a gift GM in the mouth! :P

Nah, you died, and then used hero points to reverse it.

Sweet. Everyone, start worshiping Abadar! :P

To put some context on that....

"Completion Benefit: If you died and came back, you become a living symbol of faith. Once per day as a standard action, you can inspire those who share your faith to great effort, granting them a +2 morale bonus on attack rolls and saving throws for 1 minute. This is a mind-affecting, language-dependent effect..."

Yep, you beat me to it. IDK how many of the PCs worship Abadar... probably not many, if any. But there might be some chunk of the mercenaries who worship the god of Gettin' Rich?

He's quite popular with the Aspis.

DM got a problem with me making scrolls? We got plenty of paper and ink, stuff to make both too. Still a little fuzzy on the crafting rules you laid out.

Okay, had enough free time today to go through the thread, at least.

Zeuglodon fight:
One death, although, as listed, it's a soldier and not a mercenary
Post

Hobgoblin raid:

Round 1:
Post
1 guard dead- "Three arrows quickly put down one of the guard's to Iliante's right"

Round 2:
Post
3 guards dead- "two more guards are cut down by arrows" and "The plumed rider near Iliante slices open one of the guards like it's child's play, before his reptilian mount bites into the gash and rips out all of the guard's internal organs" (ouch)

Round 3:
Post
2 guards dead- "another two mercenaries become casualties"

Round 4:
Post
2 guards dead- "another two guards are cut down"

Round 5:
Post
I thiiiink 10 guards die here. Not 100% sure. Text is as follows:

"...tears the head off another of the mercenaries." So one right there.

"On the eastern side of the camp the battle is less of a rout and more of a titanic struggle for survival. The melee range riders ignore Penance, and continue their butchery of the guards. All but two guards fall in melee. The other two become the targets of a half dozen arrows, but their shield and armor protect them."

I'm not certain how many guards there were on that side of the camp at that point to know what my total is. Judging by the attack rolls, 11. So if 2 guards were left standing, that'd be 9 dead, plus the one who lost his head, for 10.

Round 6:
Post
GEOOOOOOOORG! NOOO! ...1 more dead

No guards fell in the rest of the rounds that I saw.

And 7 from vines, so:

7 (vines) + 1 (maybe a sailor? vs the sea-monster) + 19 in the raid = 27 total.

Sounds right. Soldier=mercenary.

There were 60 to begin with, so you're down to 33 mercs, 40 sailors, and 6 slaves.

40 more mercs are on the Breath.

Go ahead and take your awesome die Penance.
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On a separate note, apparently China (where I live) has started blocking Google Docs/Drive. So I'm going to need to find another way to host maps/images. I also have been gettin very busy the last couple weeks. So updates might be slow for a little bit. Thank you for your patience.