RD's Fangwood Keep (Inactive)

Game Master Rene Duquesnoy

Armun is correct. We will pass as quickly as our legs will allow us.

Diplomacy Aid: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (8) + 3 = 11

Armun tries a different tack. "The truth is that a malign force seems to have taken up residence within the keep. We received word that good friends of ours, Pathfinders, were kidnapped and are to be murdered in some foul ritual. Time is a luxury we wish we had, which is why going around is something we really want to avoid."

Bluff: 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (12) + 11 = 23

The centaur rubs his chin.
1d20 + 6 ⇒ (18) + 6 = 24

The main centaur says something to his companions (anyone speak Sylvan), and the group pulls their bows out.

I give you one last chance human. Go around or feel the pain of our arrows.

There are 9 other centaurs there.

Someone else can diplomacize them if you want to chance it

Kelvor watches the centaurs in amazement. His young eyes take in their every movement, every canter.

"It is an honor to meet you, centaur-fahn," he says, giving the centaur the Shoanti honorific of wise leader. "My people have tales of you and yours, but none I know have met you. As for my companions, they speak the truth: we would pass quickly and have a strong desire for peace and tranquility."

Diplomacy Aid Another: 1d20 ⇒ 10

Armun speaks Sylvan. He has a Satyr friend. Could he hear what they said?

FYI -- Tarrow has a potion of fly in one spring loaded wrist sheath and one potion of cure serious wounds in the other spring loaded wrist sheath.

To the Head-Centaur-In-Charge (HCIC)

"Well met Master of the Woodland, while you are certainly not obliged to to allow up safe passage through your lands, and if you request we will submit to your denial and travel around you lands, but know this, we have no intention to bring mischief or harm to your fair lands."

"In fact we seek the exact opposite. Our mission takes us to Fangwood keep as my compatriot has mentioned. I have information that there are evil humanoids in or around your homeland. Possibly there have been raids into your lands?"

"While not our primary mission, should we encounter any of these undesirables we will surly kill them and rid your surroundings of their menace."

"We are more than capable, please give me the opportunity to show you. Perhaps an exhibition between me and your finest archer?"

"If you allow us passage, while we travel through your lands will assist in protecting your lands."

"Please Master of the Woodland," with an agreeing nod "let us share a mead or two and palaver."

diplomacy: 1d20 - 2 ⇒ (19) - 2 = 17

Armun hears the centaur say "I don't trust them. Be ready."

Tarrow: You can put a dagger, dart, or a wand in a SLWS, but not a potion.

The centaur uncrosses his arms, and slightly nods. Fangwood Keep. I have heard of it, but never have traveled there. It is too close to the warzone. You look the honest sort. I'm afraid we are on patrol, and don't have time for an archery tournament, or to sip a mead. I shall let you pass. If you come across others of the family, tell them "The acorn falls and the tree rises", and you shall be given free passage.

Armun breathes a barely audible sigh of relief, and nods in thanks to the centaur.

Quietly, he says, "Well said, Tarrow. Seems I could learn a thing or two from you, and not just about archery."

Well said indeed. You are full of surprises, or so it seems.

The heroes continue their journey southwest. After a few miles, you come across a few random bones and see a small mountain with a cave opening.

Kn: Local DC 15

Hmm, best be on our guard. Who knows what may lurk here.

No knowledge local here.

Tarrow: You can put a dagger, dart, or a wand in a SLWS, but not a potion.

I don’t want to go all rules lawyer, and if you don’t allow it, I am totally ok with that.

That being said… the description of wrist sheath lists dagger, dart or wand as examples, not an exclusive list, but merely listing some examples, hence the words “such as”.

"This is a sheath designed to be strapped to your forearm and hidden under a long sleeve. The sheath can hold one forearm-length item such as a dagger, dart, or wand, or up to five arrows or crossbow bolts. Alternatively, you may store up to 1 pound of ammunition in a wrist sheath. As a move action, you can bend your wrist to cause some or all of these items to drop into your hand (provoking attacks of opportunity as normal). You have a +2 bonus on Sleight of Hand checks made to oppose the Perception check of someone observing or frisking you regarding items in the sheath. You can only wear one wrist sheath per arm."[Emphasis added]

Wrist Sheath Description

In addition potions seem to be much smaller than a dagger, dart or wand.

"Physical Description: A typical potion or oil consists of 1 ounce of liquid held in a ceramic or glass vial fitted with a tight stopper. The stoppered container is usually no more than 1 inch wide and 2 inches high. The vial has Armor Class 13, 1 hit point, hardness 1, and a break DC of 12."[Emphasis added]

Potion Description

With that as a premise I would think that potions would be smaller than a dagger or wand or a pound of ammunition or 5 arrows/bolts. With a smaller size I would think a wrist sheath would be be able to hold a potion.

Even if an argument can be made a potion vial is too small, that would not seem to hold, because of the definition of "ammunition".

Ammunition defined

Based on the above definition numerous Shuriken, stones and bullets can be held in the wrist sheath.

***As I said before if you do not want to allow potions based on size or game mechanics or some other reason I am ok with that. : )

Drawing his crossbow. Peering around. In a hushed whisper to Narvik," Did you see something move?"

Perception: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (20) + 5 = 25

No Knowledges here either

Perception: 1d20 + 3 ⇒ (5) + 3 = 8

No, I don't believe so, Tarrow. What did you see?

Kelvor, noting his companions' increased attention, stops and slowly looks about.

Perception: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (16) + 8 = 24

Armun sees the bones and the cave opening...

Knowledge: Local: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (17) + 9 = 26

Knowledge(local): 1d20 + 11 ⇒ (13) + 11 = 24
Perception: 1d20 - 2 ⇒ (2) - 2 = 0

"Everyone, I congratulate all of you on your decision to parley with the centaurs and your skills at Diplomacy, particularly Master Tarrow. I apologize that my religious obligations prevented me from assisting, but I am very glad that you proved to be such skilled negotiators."

Pribam casts message (range 120', duration 20 mins.) on Ambassador Kelvor and Pastor Navrik. He then casts it again on Master Tarrow and Master Govil. He then draws his wand of web. "Perhaps one of you could approach, investigate, and let us know whether you want us to come forward? I'm afraid I'm not particularly stealthy. I could call upon Razmir to briefly hide you from sight if you wish."

Pribam is offering to cast vanish augmented by one point from his arcane reservoir, which would give it a duration of 3 rounds.

My friend, I do not know if any one of us is particularly stealthy.

Hmmm, three fighters and an oracle with a limp. I think we forgot the rogue, LOL.

Armun chimes in, "I could do some scouting of this cave. I have a knack for being unseen, and I think one of these elixirs might come in handy too."

He's not a rogue, but he's got a decent Stealth modifier and the ability to cast Invisibilty. Add the use of the Elixir of Hiding and... I can probably serve as scout now and then.

@Tarrow: I did some digging into this. Looked at too many forum posts, spoke various GMs that I know, talked to a few Venture Officers, and even spoke to 2 contributing authors. The majority of them say that potions in a SLWS is not legal, but they all agree that there is no hard and fast rule either way. Since there is no official ruling from people like Brock or designers like Reynolds, I'm going to say that they aren't allowed. If you find some official ruling on this, I'd be happy to reverse my stance, and go buy a few SLWS for most about 10 of my characters. If you'd like to discuss this more, please shoot me a PM. Otherwise, game on.

Armun & Pribam know that this area of the forest with the cave is called Sigurx's Cave. Sigurx is a troll, and they remember seeing bounty posters for the troll in the tavern.

Tarrow, Pribam, Kelvor, and Narvik focus their senses to find any trace of anything in the near area. Nothing can be heard or seen.

Going into the cave is an option if you'd like.

We should be on our way. No sense looking for trouble.

"Ah yes, this is Sigurx's Cave, a troll with a bounty on it. It'd be good to deal with this threat, for the people of Tamran, but I cannot say I had prepared myself to deal with the creature," Armun pauses, thinking for a moment. "I'd be fine with scouting the cave and seeing what's what. It could be that the beast is not home."

To Arum "Did you say bounty?"

Double checking his crossbow, to the party, still looking in around " A troll like that might have accumulated some tasty treasure also."

"I say we we raid his cave, if he is not home we are in and out. If Sigurx is home we take him out. I could use the extra coin."

"Of course I will go with the majority stance, but if we plan to leave we should leave quickly, I would rather take him then him take us"

"I vote we go in and take him for all he's got"

"Besides, what if we pass him up, and later he comes up behind us while we are dealing with some other evil..."

...I'm going to say that they aren't allowed.

Rene the mark of a good GM is not that he rules the way you want him to, it's that he listens to your argument, researches the answer and then uses his best GM judgment to make a ruling. And you have do all three, and I thank you for that.

I now have 5 adamantine bolts in one wrist sheath and a dagger in the other. : D Game on!

"Dear Pathfinders, I believed you promised the centaurs you would deal with threats such as that presented by a troll. Investigating this cave would constitute keeping up your end of the bargain. I suggest we see whether we can collect this bounty, then move on."

Technically speaking, the cave is outside of the realm of the centaurs. Still, feel free to explore or leave it.

Narvik doesn't seem completely convinced but he relents to the arguments made by the others. Very well, but lets not dally too much. Our main mission is still at hand.

"Three of the four prior missions did not come back. Perhaps because one or more of them was waylaid by the troll."

"Ok, let me do some scouting first. I'll take a quick look and report back."

Armun will cast Invisibility on himself, and then sneak into the cave, checking for traps and monsters along the way.

Stealth: 1d20 + 27 ⇒ (5) + 27 = 32 I added the +20 to stealth while moving (+40 while stationary).

Perception: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (15) + 7 = 22

Kelvor girds himself for battle, preparing his weapons, cleaning the dirt from the gleaming studs on his earthbreaker, checking his armor straps.

Kelvor begins chanting softly under his breath, unhearable by any but the closest.

Steel for the man,
Silver for the changer,
Cold iron of the earth's bosum for the First World,
Fire for the mountain lurker...

"Do we have fire amongst us? A mountain lurker like this Sigurx will want fire to stay down," says the Shoanti. "Oracle, priest, surely your gods can aid us here?"

"Ambassador, I was entrusted with this holy relic," Pribam gestures to the thin golden necklace with small globes like charms hanging from it. "Each of these pendants can become a great ball of flame immolating all within about twenty feet of the point of impact."

Behold, the holy hand grenades of Razmir!

Armun gets about 15 feet into the cave when it turns and gets pretty dark. (currently low light)

Can Armun see in the dark?

Elbowing Narvik "He's good, I can't even see him."

Perception: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (13) + 5 = 18

As Armun moves forward, Pribam does too, to ensure he stays within the 120' limit of the message spell.

Pribam reaches up and snatches his ioun torch from orbit around his head. He points to Armun and whispers, "I have light if you need it."

Armun is human, so normal vision only. Should have thought about that...

If he's not heard anything at this stage, he'll pick up a rock and (quietly) cast Light on it. Then he'll toss the rock about 10 feet forward to see what gets illuminated.

He'll also pull out his longbow. No better time to be ready for trouble.

Armun 'sneaks' while throwing a lit stone a little further down the tunnel. When the stone lands, Armun looks further and sees a rather large troll sitting at a table reading something. The troll looks over to the stone, and reaches out to grab the ranseur leaning up against the wall. He grunts to himself.

what languages do you speak?

Sigh. I'd hoped the cave went deeper.
I speak French and English. Armun speaks Common and Sylvan

The troll mumbles something you can understand and beings to look around. He is still sitting.

1d20 + 19 ⇒ (3) + 19 = 22

Anything else of note that I can see, besides the troll and the ranseur in his hands? If not, Armun will sneak back out and report to the group.

Stealth: 1d20 + 27 ⇒ (7) + 27 = 34

As Pribam moves up, so does Tarrow. Tarrow waves Kelvor and Narvik forward as well.

You can move closer and try and inspect the room.

Perception: 1d20 + 19 ⇒ (17) + 19 = 36

The troll stands up and beings yelling in a language you don't understand, directly at Armun.

Armun high-tails it out of there!

Do you want to whisper a warning to us via message?

Oh man, yes!

Armun whispers, through message, "TROLL! TROLL! I'm coming out!" and continues to high-tail it out.

As Armun high tails it (I assume move as fast as possible), he becomes less stealthy. The troll makes a few steps towards Armun's direction, then stops, sighs, and goes back to the table shaking his head.

Armun & Co are safely outside the cave's entrance in no danger.

Catching his breath and standing among his companions, Armun gives a bit more thorough a recounting.

"The creature noticed me. Incredible. I did see the troll itself to see it held a ranseur, and that it was reading. That's all I was able to see." He pauses and reflects. "Are trolls the type to read? It's not at all what I expect of them."

"I presume none of us speak troll. Well, I assume it's troll. It spoke, but not in any language I know. Do we want to parlay with the beast?"

Parlay for what? We can merely leave it be or go in there with the intent of cutting it down. Do we want to waste our resources here?

"It was reading? I doubt many books are written in troll. Perhaps it speaks common. Either way, Razmir grants me the ability to converse with others, regardless of language. I would have to touch it, though. If you wish to parley, I will try. It might know something about what we will find at the Keep."

"Narvik, I suggest parlay because of the weirdness of the situation. I'm curious. Since it hasn't charged out to slay me, it seems like an oddly restrained creature. I've seen some weird things in my travels, but not trolls. This is not what I expected of them."

Turning to Pribam, Armun says,"Touching the creature would be folly though. It doesn't seem like it will chase us, but it was still not polite. You'll lose the hand that touches it.

"Odd. Trolls are not ones to read..could it have been studying a spell book? Arum would recognize the tongue of mages? I have heard stories of ogres who wield magic, why not trolls.

"It is a terrible risk to parley if it wields magic."

"Let us approach the entrance and call to him in common."

"Armun, do you remember what the bounty was for, what crimes or dastardly deeds did this troll commit?"

"Let us parlay, if it goes poorly we will slay this menace."