Kingmaker: On the Shoulders of Giants (Inactive)

Game Master JDPhipps

Checking in. I wanted to wait a while to post since I've been posting a lot lately. I figured I'd have marcus come back sometime during the "try to save the captain" scene. No one seems to be running with that ball yet so I thought I'd bump things here

I was just about to do the same, I didn't want to move ahead without some other people being able to try to figure out what's wrong. We should still have seven people, and I think a couple of you should have at least a decent chance of figuring out what's going on.

Annika unfortunately does not have said skills. I was hoping someone else would post with something to do.

I am mostly done moving so I should be back to normal posting.

I'm guessing the captain's been poisoned. Marcus has anti-toxin but he doesn't have the skills neccessary to tell if it's poison or not.

Do we seriously not have anyone with the Heal skill in this party? That's kinda hilarious.

I do just rolled really bad. Thus the assist. The dice gods do not love me.

Checking in.

I'm really enjoying this game. What can we do to boost it's momentum a bit?

Well, the biggest thing is probably for me to be better about my posting rate. So, uh, that one's on me. I was sort of waiting for Derrick to come back as he will be here... soon. I thought he would rejoin sooner, but I think he's still transferring all his profiles and such onto the new account he made. That said, I'll just assume he's one of the sailors with you guys. When he gets here, he gets here.

I did just start a new job, although I do have some downtime at work (I'm working as a night auditor so most of my night is free). I will try my best to post more, although do be aware that I'm awake all night and asleep most of the day now so my posting times will reflect that. I would love to, you know, not do that... but considering I'm HOPING to move away at some point in the coming year, saving up money would be nice. If only I could do this for a living.

Anyway, I will personally try to up my posting rate. I know I'm pretty inconsistent, and I apologize for that.

Also, we're going to be using the new Exploration rules from Ultimate Wilderness for our hexcrawl maps. I do plan to use more kinds of skills than Survival/Perception, including some skills that you may not always think are important to put ranks into. I'm really excited to give these a try, and I hope you all enjoy it.

I, for one, have been enjoying the game a lot. Even if Marcus has been the one doing the heavy lifting, it's cool to see your party mates being successful -specially when doing unorthodox or creative stuff-.

@Jon: I can understand you, Life's a b*&%! and as we get older it gets harder to have time. I too will do my best to move things forward and keep the game going because Kingmaker (specially a custom one with the island and the ruins and everything) is a great concept with lots of hooks.

I agree with Garrick on all points. Sorry for being slow, I am done moving and I have been having a lot of trouble sleeping.

So, I have been trying to do a better job with frequent posting, I hope the pace has picked up a bit for you all. However, the next couple days will likely be pretty sparse from me. I'm working every night until the 8th (and I'm going to be horribly busy Friday and Saturday, I'm sure) and then I'll be away from home for a week until the 16th. I'm visiting my girlfriend in Memphis so I won't have a ton of time to post.

I won't be going silent until then, but I'll definitely be posting less than I was before. After that I'll be back to trying to post as frequently as possible.

Thanks for the heads up.

I think we are at the point where we are ready to rest for the night, so if your next post can move us forward then we can pick it up with roleplay to fill the downtime while you are busy.

Thanks for the heads up! Sorry I have been so iffy with posting. I am getting my scheduled sorted out, which is great. But since I almost have that in order my people decided to loss their minds. Murphy is my spirit animal.

Have a good trip, Jon!

Sorry, meant to make that post and then I got busy. I'll try to post at least a few times while I'm gone, but I don't know how often that'll be. I'm posting from the Charlotte airport right now, and I'm only awake thanks to the ~50 ounces of coffee I've had so far today. I'm gonna get a post up before I board my next flight, though.

And we're back!

Sorry that was longer than intended. My connecting flight home was cancelled on the 16th so I was stranded in Charlotte for the night, and I had to get a hotel room and sleep for about two hours before getting up to catch my flight to a much farther airport from my home because no more flights were heading into my preferred airport the next day. That meant I was basically a zombie for a few days while I had to adjust my sleep schedule back to being nocturnal. Now though, I finally feel vaguely alive enough to get back to posting. I should be back up to around 4-5 posts a week, which is about what I was at before I left and seemed to be a better pace for everyone.

At this point, you guys can start exploring the island to find traces of these missing colonists or to see what Aspis is up to. You'll need Survival checks to glean much meaningful information for the time being, or a Perception check at a -5 penalty. You can also roll Climb to get a good view from the high ground, giving you a +5 bonus on your check. Pick a hex on the map and that'll be what you get information from.

Now's the time to brag about yourselves. Jump in!

This is like the petri dish scene from The Thing.

Never seen it so I will have to take your word for it. Not a bad idea with the knife. Bravo Marcus.

Did Gallidren come out of a Kingmaker game?

He cane out of our Kingmaker game, yeah.

Oh right! Sorry, I had a brain cramp. Marcus spent so much of that game separated from the rest of the group that I feel like I didn't interact with him much.

Sorry, my mistake.

Sorry for my continued absence. I've been feeling pretty fatigued lately and I just haven't felt up to posting. I think I might be sick and I just can't really put anything together. If it doesn't go away soon I already have a doctor's appointment scheduled so I'll talk to him then.

Thanks for the update. Hope you feel better soon.

Are Garrick and Janus still with us?

Yep. I posted on Saturday, and only one other has posted since...

Hey all, I'm finally back in business. I'm sorry I haven't been posting, but I just haven't had the mental energy. Between picking up extra shifts at work and what I thought was me being sick, I was just too tired to formulate something like this. My doctor upped one of my medications and I've been feeling better, so I should be back to my normal posting rate now. Sorry I was gone for so long.

As for Garrick, I'm not sure where he is. Last time I spoke to him he had some health problems in his family, and he since has dropped most of his games? I shot him a PM to see if he'd like to continue the game. I hope he'll get in touch with me soon, regardless of whether he wants to play or not.

We are glad to hear that you are feeling better, Jon!

I'm on vacation until saturday. Marcus is ready to move though. Please bot me as needed.

I got hurt at work and the medicine that the doctor gave me has made me really foggy. I still get to work which is good for my bills. But if need be bot me cause I have no idea how functional I will be.

No one really gave us a direction to head, so I'll just choose randomly I guess? 1-50 will be northwest, 51-100 will be northeast.

Direction: 1d100 ⇒ 92

Northeast we go!

Sounds good to Janus! ;)

slowly jumping back into posting and the random direction looks good to me

Sure, sounds good

I've never been a fan of "faceless NPCs." It's a personal taste thing and not a super big deal, but I think it would be fun to put together a roster list of who's back at camp, with some basic info about each of them.

Here's the crew roster my group put together for Skull and Shackles. I was thinking we might do something similar.

Thoughts?

Sounds cool to me...

I've never been a fan of "faceless NPCs." It's a personal taste thing and not a super big deal, but I think it would be fun to put together a roster list of who's back at camp, with some basic info about each of them.

Here's the crew roster my group put together for Skull and Shackles. I was thinking we might do something similar.

Thoughts?

Actually, this is something I've got in the works because I honestly agree with you on that. Part of the reason I haven't given out all of their names and such is that since I've been busy lately I haven't finished writing up stuff for all the NPCs, but also because I had the intention of introducing some of them over time as the sailors were actually going to be part of your kingdom building; at the moment you only have one boat with a singular crew, but as time goes on and you were able to perhaps acquire more boats or crew I was going to make it so you could upgrade crew members using BP for your kingdom.

Since Azlant exists more as a series of islands than a big landmass, a navy is generally going to be a lot more important. Right now all the sailors are generic warriors, but you will be getting to know them and perhaps learn the direction you might want to take them in once your colony gets going.

That's a very cool idea. :)

I am ok with that!

Marcus I love that you have some NPC named Owlbear

He's right out of Skull and Shackles. He's one of the nastier enemies the party faces at the very start of the game, but in our game we ended up befriending him after the initial press-gang and he sided with us during the mutiny, so now he's part of our crew.

So, remember when I said I had energy to post again? My place of employment then desired to fire one of the other people working my shift and the person they hired never showed up for training, so I'm back to working more than I'm supposed to. I'm going to keep trying to post regularly despite that as the other issues have gone away, but I ended up working seven days straight to cover for the person they fired and, despite the fact that I was supposed to have a bit of time off after that, they tried to get me to come in a day later and work again and now I'm working extra shifts this week too.

Hopefully by next week or so this'll be sorted out at work and I'll be back to normal.

If you need to take some time Jon that is more than reasonable. That is way to much work.

Marcus I do not remember an Owlbear guy but I have no clue what the GM changed before he stopped running. I may have just missed the name among noise of nine other players.

Ouch. That sounds exhausting, Jon. On the upside, when it's over hopefully you'll have some fat paychecks to show for it. Take whatever time you need.

Conri, Owlbear is right out of the book. He even has artwork (though your GM might not have shown you that). He's introduced in a "friendly" boxing match as the entertainment in one of the earliest nights on the Wormwood. Maybe your GM skipped that encounter? With 10 players I'd imagine some changes would have to be made.

Yeah I'm thinking that is what happened.

I'm without net access until monday. Please bot me as needed.

I'm still waiting to see if anyone has anything to say about the tracks we found

Waiting on you all at this point. Where do you want to go?

Guys, I really don't want to but I think I need to cancel this game. My personal life is kind of in shambles right now and I really can't give a definitive date when it'll stop being that way. I'm sorry. I really wanted to continue this and make it work but I just can't right now.

Thanks for the game, Jon. I enjoyed both the games I've been in with you. If you ever decide to start up another one, hit me up.