PFS 5-16 Destiny of the Sands Part 3: Sanctum of the Sages (Inactive)

Game Master TheBobJones

I think Xull was referring to the ghost salts - and I think he has a good point.

The ghost salts only last for 1 attack - and if we attack a zombie before we ever run into an incorporeal creature, the salts will be wasted.

They are really best used on projectiles. you can either get 1 attack from an axe, or 10 attacks from arrows.

We should really bake the salts on some of Amarok's "regular" arrows.

Fine by me

As always, please let me know who has what - so far I have Amarok with the bolts, and Korasu asking for them. Also did Warpac bake the salt on? You said you did but I know Xull suggested not to. Weird PbP timelines. I have a full day/night so please resolve these before we move on.

As for the pacing, I think we might be going a bit too fast if you can believe it. I am not going to poast any further actions until tomorrowish.

Warpac did, indeed, bake the salts on. But on his suggestion I would like to bake them onto his starknife instead of the axe.

Up to you, since you claimed it first, but you still only get 1 attack as opposed to 10... and I'll go out on a limb and guess that Amarok does more damage at range than Warpac... if we run into a ghost.

I'm going to remain optimistic that we aren't going to run into a ghost and that the ghost salt is merely there so that it can be included on the Chronicle sheet, despite the fact that I'm relatively sure that it isn't on the Chronicle sheet.

Yeah optimism! :)

Ok salt baked on to a starknife, and we still have the canister and the stone.

Sounds like on old Irish folktale.

Incidentally I gave you all another worksheet. Make sure to keep up with them

Ok so there are multiple things to do here, and the sequence matters quite a bit. So over PbP we are going to do it this way. Please choose what you are going to do first. After that is resolved you can move on to something else.

To make things easier, though everything is described in the description, here are your choices:

• Carving on the east wall
• A withered corpse
• A large, pristine pool

Please choose what you are going to do first. After that is resolved you can move on to something else.

Regarding the text, is that a singular you or a plural you? In other words, did you mean the group investigates one of the three, that gets resolved and then the group goes on to the next? Or each player chooses one of the three and waits for GM response to resolve what he learned?

I'm going to have to post after work tonight, if I have the energy. RL is making major demands for the next few days so I may only get one post in a day.

GM_TheBobJones wrote:

Please choose what you are going to do first. After that is resolved you can move on to something else.

Regarding the text, is that a singular you or a plural you? In other words, did you mean the group investigates one of the three, that gets resolved and then the group goes on to the next? Or each player chooses one of the three and waits for GM response to resolve what he learned?

I'm going to have to post after work tonight, if I have the energy. RL is making major demands for the next few days so I may only get one post in a day.

Well it was intended for a group 'you' but there is no rule that you all have to act in concert.

Your adventure, I am just pasting boxed text :)

I just assumed it was a group "you" - knowing what I know of scenarios. I just went with what Warpac started because I couldn't think of a reason to chose a specific order.

No worries whatever happens. (unless we fail, then we blame it on... the elf. It's always the elf)

/ducks

Ack! I forgot to post in this game today!!!

Sorry GM!!!!

I will get it tonight. Love the posts and where I think this might go.

What indeed would a water elemental stuck in a desert want if not shiny jewels?

hrmm.....

I've got at least one more day where RL will be keeping me very busy. I hope by the weekend I can keep better pace with the other posters. I'm not getting time to read the posts and think about them much yet, but I hope I can be more help with the riddles once I can get caught up. Good job so far, everyone.

On the plus side, me forgetting to explicitly state that I had a Diplomacy Assist that I could give made good fodder for me trying to impress upon the importance of "proactive posting" to a group I'm GMing for.

I'll definitely have to remember that one in the future, even when the Diplomancer rolls "20-huge" ;)

But under the weather today. Hoping to be back to normal tomorrow.

Sorry guys, weekend went a tad manic, i will get a post up in the morning ^^

Would Read Magic make those scrolls readable, because Warpac has an open orizon slot!

Warpac level 0 spells are not the best. You cannot use Read Magic to identify, only Spellcraft.

Though reflecting, there really is no reason that Toorin cannot take 10 on his Spellcraft checks. Will take you a bit longer, but will give you all the scrolls.

Toorin going forward - this and next scenario, would you like to take 10 to ID magic items? Good - there will be little you cannot ID, bad - when you get cursed items (like you did in this scenario) you'd need a really good roll to figure it out. Let me know.

You can use read magic to identify which spells are in a spellbook. Not sure if it applies to scrolls...

You can decipher magical inscriptions on objects—books, scrolls, weapons, and the like—that would otherwise be unintelligible.

Takes 1 minute per page (ie. per level of spell).

So I have 1 vote to use the sarcophagus, and 2 votes to use one of the dead bodies that you found. I would like 1 or 2 other to weight in or we go with those that voiced their opinion.

See you in the morning.

Warpac level 0 spells are not the best. You cannot use Read Magic to identify, only Spellcraft.

Though reflecting, there really is no reason that Toorin cannot take 10 on his Spellcraft checks. Will take you a bit longer, but will give you all the scrolls.

Toorin going forward - this and next scenario, would you like to take 10 to ID magic items? Good - there will be little you cannot ID, bad - when you get cursed items (like you did in this scenario) you'd need a really good roll to figure it out. Let me know.

Considering we've already found two cursed items, I'd prefer to keep making rolls to preserve the possibility of detecting a cursed item. If you want, I can make a bunch of spellcraft rolls and leave them under a spoiler to use as needed.

I'm now teaching a class every morning, M-Th, so if I haven't posted by 6 AM (Eastern time, US) I'll probably not post until mid-afternoon at earliest.

Paranoia! I love it.

Paranoia! I love it.

Why does this always happen in my games? Weird.

So to shed some light as we are 3-3, I have created 2 documents for you to record your learning on. One body would add to once doc, one would add to the other. Neither will 'save you' or 'kill you'.

Any possibility of translating the encoded notes?

Xull as per the notes - you were able to translate them.

The notes are question-and-answer sessions conducted with the scholar’s spirit. The questions concern the preservation of memory in magical jewels and the crafting and repair of such jewels The notes explain that the sarcophagus allows a creature touching it to commune with any corpse placed inside. This ability can be activated once per day, as the spell speak with dead (CL 8th), though the visage on the lid speaks the answers rather than the corpse.

Sorry if I was unclear about that.

Oh, right. I thought the notes related to what they'd talked to the corpse about and there was a separate, encoded message. I can be a dummy at times.

So questions, it doesnt seem the note give any indication as to who they are, so maybe that? Obviously if they know the location of the diamond sage and where they are? Who asked the questions in the notes? Does he know Amenopheous?

Those lines are what im thinking right now.

Ideas for Questions 3 4:
Where can we find the Diamond Sage?
Where can we find the Diamond Sage's Sage Jewel?
How can we release the Elemental?
Who were you in life?

Sorry all, I know that I mentioned a few times that the sarcophagus works like the Speak with dead spell, level 8 but you may not have read up on it. Please feel free to do so. Some quick notes for people at work/without internet access.

• The corpse knowledge is limited to what it knew during its life, and cannot answer anything that occurred after its death.
• If the dead creature's alignment is different than yours, it gets a Will save to be able to Bluff you (all rolls off screen)

Bravo on painting that picture GM - Bravo.

My opinion is we should ask these questions (in this order)

I really think these are the most important questions, or some variation on them, since this is our mission:

Where was the last location you remember of the diamond sage?
Where were the last locations you remember of the sage jewels?

We cannot ask questions like where can we find the current diamond sage since he can only answer questions about what happened during his life.

Depending on the answers to these two questions we can ask about traps or the like if the jewel is in this building, or get some history. I do like the question about releasing the elemental if the first two pan out sufficiently.

I was thinking the "Who were you in life?" can come first, then go from there.

What most interests me is the relationship between the living sage and the jewel. Is the wisdom of the jewel sage due to the possession of the jewel and if so, does one merely need to hold the jewel to unlock the knowledge and/or wisdom it contains or is there a ritual or what.

It seems the diamond sage could be one who has been alive ever since the secret of the gems was developed, in which case the main value of the gem is longevity with wisdom being a natural byproduct of an unusually long life. Or it could be that the gem is passed on from one sage to the next, somehow preserving the wisdom of the previous sages and passing it on to the next one who could add his/her wisdom to the gem.

This kind of information the ancient corpse's spirit might know. If we know how the wisdom is preserved and passed on, it could give us the clues we need to find the gems and perhaps the diamond sage.

I can see us going around on this question for a long time. Shall we elect the person to do the talking and let them make the decision and take the credit/blame?

After some thought, I agree with the questions relating to our specific mission. I still think it is important to ask about who the body is, so we can have some context for what information he/she might know.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Good point Warpac A huge drawback for PbP. I don't want to make your decisions, but I also don't want you all to get frustrated and waste a day bantering.

Pooka Great idea! Do it!

OK - went back through the thread looking for clues.

We know from the water elemental that the jeweled sages fought in this place. Why or when we don't know. We know from her also that there were either 3 or 4 of the sages.

We also know that one area of this place was charred by a fireball spell.

I guess I am drawing a blank on what question to ask next. Sorry guys, I'm not feeling very smart and helpful here.

Maybe the next question should just be a point blank, "who is the diamond sage?"

If anyone else agrees with that, just go ahead and post it.

Good thought, Pooka, but if he's from ancient Osirion, he most likely predates the jeweled sages by a long time. We probably can confirm this among ourselves without wasting another question. See Xûll's post for more...

Xull - you are correct.

Ok, so as I have stated before, I am not a punitive GM by any means, and this Q & A is not going to 'save you' or 'kill you'. Most of you have expressed asking it a question regarding the Diamond Sage, which is your primary objective, so I allowed it. It also fits Warpac and his adventure thus far. Honestly - don't sweat it.

All good. My last post may have come off more whiny that I intended. I think you know why, John... after our experiences with a certain player in another game who has been less diligent with his post reading recently. ;-)

Anyway, apologies to Warpac if it came off that way. Any ideas for questions 3 & 4? I'm thinking we should ask a bit more about Seeker's Folly (though they probably didn't call it that back in the ancient days)... or about who was asking him questions earlier.

For the sake of keeping the game going, last question by 12 CST today or we move on. Lots to get through and I'd at least like to start some of it before the weekend.

So regarding the librarian, he could only really answer questions about Osirion's Past, which is unhelpful to you and your current quest. Unless, you think why would someone or someones care about Osirion's past.

In between Part 2 and Part 3 I will let you do this again with a different body as we upgrade and whatnot.

Yeah, I figured. That's why I wanted the Pathfinder corpse in there, really.

In any case, the coin decided... and as you said, it doesn't make a difference long term.

Those were the sort of questions i had thought of. No matter, we shall get the answers we need.

I'm a bit confused by some things that seemed strongly implied by one post and then denied by later ones.

We find all kinds of indications that refer to the first pharaohs of Osirion.

We find a long hidden tomb, also linked to an ancient tradition of Nethys helping those pharaohs found the nation.

We find notes that contain "question-and-answer sessions conducted with the scholar’s spirit. The questions concern the preservation of memory in magical jewels and the crafting and repair of such jewels. The notes explain that the sarcophagus allows a creature touching it to commune with any corpse placed inside."

The corpse inside is identified as that of a librarian associated with the last of the original pharaohs.

This strongly implied to me that the tradition of the jeweled sages is strongly linked to, if not created by, someone back in the time of the original pharaohs, with a strong suggestion that this someone is the librarian in the coffin.

So my question was trying to learn about that process of becoming a jeweled sage.

I was not asking about current sages but about the origin of those sages. If that happened later than the ancient corpse's time, then I'm a bit confused about all the information we've been given.

It might help to know what we characters are assumed to know about the jeweled sage tradition. Presumably the person who gave us the quest, a jeweled sage himself, knows some things about that. We could have asked about it at the outset, but then we did not really know that that information would be relevant.

So specifically, do we know the answers to any of these querstions?

How far back in time are the jeweled sages known to go back?

Who was the first sage?

How does one become a sage?

What is the connection to the jewels?

Or are all these questions just red herrings which won't help us? If so, we might as well move on to the next unexplored part of the building.

Toorin - honestly I, as the GM, have very little background information on the Sages.

a set of gems that store Osirian history and the spiritual essence of long-dead scholars. Known as the Jeweled Sages, these men and women dedicated their lives to amassing the fading knowledge of Osirion’s golden age in preparation for a time when the land of pharaohs might

again grow powerful, yet a series of tragedies shattered the order and sent the sages into hiding, leaving behind little but the enchanted jewels that stored their knowledge.

So this happen after the Pharaohs, before the present time. There are tons of wikis and sourcebooks on Osirian history that you could pick up to find out more about the timelines.

As for this adventure, in character you can know the following:
So anyone who possesses a sage jewel becomes a Jeweled Sage, and part of the history stored in the physical jewel is transferred to the person holding it.

So Amenopheus is called the Sapphire Sage. He physically possesses a specific sapphire gem that imbues him with particular Ancient Osirian history.

This room was used to create sage jewels.

It is not a red herring, as I have seen the Jeweled Sage plot at least factor into two Season 6 scenarios, which coincidently I ran for Pooka and Xull. In one scenario they are looking for a Person Worthy to become a Jeweled Sage, and in the other they are looking for a jewel to make a sage jewel. Both are faction quests so unless you change factions, you won't get that.

History

Timeline

I am all for world building so I hope that helps you out.

*ahem*

Season 5. ;-)

Xull It was Season 6 and Xull was Lort and Pooka was Cyrus. Since Lort is not scarab sages, he probably doesn't remember the faction quests. Cyrus might .

Toorin feel free to PM me if you want the names of those scenarios.

I remember both. Cyrus was trying to impress a certain monk and got knocked the $&%* out. In the other, Lort ate the heart of a winter wolf.

I love our group. :)