GM ShadowLord's Reign of Winter

Game Master The Rising Phoenix

That's rough, I wish you the best of luck job hunting.

Sorry to hear that, GM. Hoping your search is short and fruitful.

That's rough. Best of luck to you!

Darn. I hope it ends with you in a best position. Sometimes it takes some shaking to move us out of our comfort zone. Hopefully it can turn to your side.

Best wishes!

Gonna be honest, the fact that the magic hand worked surprised me lol

it often doesn't work, but eventually mage hand can be the answer!

Cantrips ftw! ;)

It does make me think what else would work. Like would a zombie or tiny golem lol

4th of july week over here, gonna be work busy until the 5th. I'll update and respond more when i can

Sorry for the long delay everyone. Shortly after i posted last time I got the news that my role was in fact one of the ones being laid off, and I have not been able to focus on anythign but that for the last 2 weeks. I appologize for not being able to get on here, but thank you for continuing to post and discuss the next steps.

Still in a weird place right now with no job for the first time in a very long time and staring down a veyr hard job market, but I am getting into the groove of a new routine and should be able ot resume regular posting now.

Hope everything is going well for you, Red

GM Red has had some absences in the past, but this one is long past any other. I still have hope we get some news from him after the summer time comes to an end, but my hopes are thin...

It is a pity, because I really enjoyed this group and campaign.

Before I say anything else, I truly hope that Red Son comes back to guide us through the rest of this AP.

That being said, I'm certainly invested in this game enough to try to continue even if he is no longer able to run. I really enjoy the group, the characters we've created and developed over the course of six (SIX!!!) years.

I suggest we set a date and after which, we reach out to the Boards to see if someone else is willing to take up GM duties.

Thoughts?

I do hope Red Son is able to return. However if he's unable to for an extended period then yes I think we should consider our next steps.

I agree with everything you just said, Letitia.

Caught the flu, but i am also still here and interested. I hope he's alright

Ill also agree with Letitia. We're too far in to stop lol

Yeah, me too.

But, what do you think? Give Red Sun another week? Month?

He hasn't popped in since we've been talking about this, so I'm thinking maybe sometime mid-September.

You want to say 9/15/24? If Red Sun hasn't checked in by then, we go looking for a new GM?

9/15 works for me

OK lets wait till then.

Yes, by end of September is a reasonable time to take decisions. With the Summer past and routine back, I see it as a final sign if we have not managed to know anything new about him.

Sure, I think the 15th is pretty reasonable.

Thanks for making the post Letitia, fingers crossed.

Hopefully some nice person who loves good RP comes by, reads the thread and gets hooked and wants to see how it ends. ;)

we can hope, id hate for this to die, its my longest running game including irl

Hi friends!

I saw a call for help, so I'm hear to help (temporarily). I hate to see long-running games die and I'll do what I can to keep you guys alive for awhile.

I am already over my comfort zone for number of games I'm in at the moment, so I'm not looking to pick up another table long-term. I told Stalwart that I'd be willing to pitch in for a bit to keep you moving until we can find you a new forever-host.

I'm a long-time GM and I've been around these forums for over a decade now. I own the material and ran a group through the first two books many years ago, so I'm roughly familiar with trajectory of the story. I don't know where you are though so I'm going to need to get up to speed and figure some things out.

I sent the request to Paizo to transfer control of the game to me.

In the meanwhile, if someone can catch me up with a little tldr of who you guys are and some of your party dynamics that'd be great.

Thanks for answering the call!

I think we're eager to get moving again, so I appreciate you stepping up even if it's just a temp gig.

I offered a quick thumbnail about each of the players in the call for a GM, so I won't repeat that here. I'll let everyone talk about themselves to give you a better idea of their personalities and motivations.

As for Letitia, she is one of three triplets born to Helka Elvanna, baroness of Ledenica in Whitethrone province. Letitia and her sisters Lobelia and Lucretia were raised to be White Witches, Jadwiga and rulers of Irrisen with ice-cold fists and hearts, though Helka also instilled in her daughters a love of country and each other. Letitia fell behind in her training, however, and though her sisters covered for her where they could, Queen Elvanna found out and ordered Helka to strangle her. Her mother did as she was bade, but stopped short of killing her daughter. While her other sisters were sent off to train under Elvanna, Letitia was smuggled out of the country and her death faked.

Letitia ended up in Heldren where her witch powers finally awoke just in time for the start of the adventure. Her knowledge of the ways of Irrisen have been invaluable to the group as she now finds herself on the quest to find Baba Yaga, whom she calls Grandmother, hoping that the Mother of Witches will end Elvanna's reign and her own exile. (And suitably reward her.)

Letitia is young but hardened through her travails. Desperately homesick and terrified about her family's fate thanks to her open rebellion, she hides it behind an icy veneer and her lifelong training as a Jadwiga. Cracks still show from time to time. Furthermore, being humbled as a refugee and now forced to rely on kind-hearted companions, her cold ruthlessness instilled in her at an early age has been slowly chipped away by her experiences.

=========================
Where we're at
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We've just defeated the servants of Kostchtchie in the Eon Pit area of the Crone, found one of the two keys to the Dancing Hut and obtained the other from Warden Jadrenka. I feel fairly certain that those two items are what's enough to conclude the third book, though I'm fairly certain there are other areas of the big dungeon complex that we haven't explored.

I don't see a real reason to keep exploring and don't think we need to clear out all of Artrosia, especially with us gaining the favor of the Warden. We have what we need, though we left off with Letitia asking Jadrenka if she has any more advice to impart. I also plan to ask to see if they can exchange some spells with their familiars to expand her repertoire.

Callix is basically living through the nightmare stories that her mother had spent her entire life preparing her for - but, having grown up in the south and being more than a little rebellious, that she spent her life ignoring and fighting back for. She's a bit of a drunk (and very pleased that she can magically conjure ale every day), and while she's generally trying to stay positive - she also can't believe that she's literally in the middle of trying to restore the Baba Yaga to her throne, given everything that the Irriseni white witches have done to their neighbours (doubly so, in that she was raised in the traditions of the Blackravens) -- but she also believes that Cayden Cailean has led her here for a reason, and totally understands the notion of the lesser of evils (though she secretly hopes that it might be possible to break the cycle rather than restore it).

She has been more than skeptical of Letitia, however, their time together has done a lot to shift that -- in fact, Callix is often surprised by not only the fact that she trusts Letitia (with her life), but that she genuinely values her and cares for her... and, ultimately, believes that she can 'save' her from her past and history, to avoid her becoming the very sort of witch that the Blackravens were created to hunt. (..and, believes that there's been at least a small measure of success, between her own interventions and those of Samuel).

Callix likes Samuel and they get along, though she thinks he's in love with the witch, even if he's not realized it (and, honestly, thinks that Letitia may reciprocate). She was closest to Alec, before his death.

As Letita mentioned, Llewellyn is a refugee from a Chelliaxian theater troupe who by accident more than design ended up in Irrisen where he was promptly arrested by the witches.

In terms of the overarching plot, having anything to do with Baba Yaga is not his second, third or even fourth choice! The thing is the witches of Irrisen want to turn Golorion into an ice cube which Llewellyn believes is the most insane thing he's ever heard of, except perhaps for allying with Baba Yaga to stop it, but needs must and all that.

As for party relations, he's deeply distrustful of every Jadwiga including Letitia although that is softening over time. Still he figures she's playing a long game that will likely run counter to their interests in the end, but for now it's clear they can't save the world without her. He's deeply worried about Ashling, the girl is terribly young to have so much blood on her hands and he's fearful about what the future will bring for her. He feels the closest to Samuel who he thinks he understands and trusts. He appreciates Callix's sense of humor and he'd trust her with his life instinctively. Despite all the booze he regards her as being the most level headed of all of them. He also agrees with Callix's assessment that Letitia and Samuel are likely in love without admitting it yet.

Long term Llewellyn plans to turn their adventures (heavily editorialized of course) into a play or perhaps a novel, which he hopes will immortalize them all.

I went to start reviewing the material and found that it was shockingly familiar. Hilariously enough, it appears I ran my group all the way up through The Mother dungeon all those years ago, which is just behind where you are now.

I think I have enough to get things move again for now. I would still like to hear from the other players when they get a chance.

The thread has been transferred to me and I've put up a post to get us moving again.

Cheers!

Good to see you around Shadowlord, and thanks to help us keep moving :)

Samuel got involved in all this because his sister and only remaining family member disappeared when the snow came. He is a High Sentinel from the Border Woods in Taldor, and hence he immediately also saw this mission was also relevant to protect his region.

The relations evolution with the other members have evolved naturally through RP, and I have particularly enjoyed how the early confrontation with Letitia as her witch powers were unveiled has slowly turned into something more, but the RP with the whole party has been great here :)

Adventure-wise, it is relevant we found out his family come from the north, and he has Jadwiga blood, reason why his sister was taken to train as a witch. Fortunately, we came to safe Adriana, who had been brainwashed to be Nazhena's Vasilliovna apprentice, but fortunately Letitia has accepted as her own apprentice after we defeated them at the end of book 2.

He also suffered the death of his friend Alec, who sacrificed himself to defeat the dragon at Whitethrone clock tower (the player went mia and we saw his character fall with the dragon but never had time to see his actual body as we had to hurry up to leave the city before we were discovered).

Well met traveler Shadowlord, thank ye for the help.

Ashling is involved because she was hired at first, after the
initial bits of the ap started.

then the Black Knight assigned the party to find baba yaga. Ashling being a warrior and having limited common sense, took this as a sort of warriors promise to see this through.

Ashling personally is barely an adult, the trauma of seeing her brother kill their parents has driven her to become an assassin willing to do anything to complete her goals. She has a sort of alternate identity called the Phantom, which is where she did her assassination work.

She made another vow to Letitia prior, to protect her should any dangers like Elvanna make themselves known.

Great to see you again, Balacertar.

Thank you all for the insights!

FYI, GM, we kind of mentioned Maris to Jadrenka earlier.

No worries, since I know you're catching up and there's a lot that's gone down probably differently than how you ran your own game.

But... just putting it out there.

I did miss you mentioned it earlier. The book calls out specific actions to interacting with Jadrenka with regards to Marislova, so I was following in that direction. I suppose you can just consider her in a bad mood regarding the subject for now :)

Like I said, no worries.

:)

Though...

Did she leave her familiar so we can still do the spell exchange??

Yes, yes, you can have your spells young Jadwiga. Jadrenka had already agreed to let the exchange happen, so that stands.

--

Question for the group. Since I'm not acquainted with your playstyle and preferences quite yet, I have a question on how you would like to proceed. We are essentially finished the third book, you've accomplished your primary goals here but have some miscellaneous errand you'd like to accomplish first.

Do you enjoy the dungeon-crawly aspect and want to work through each room and have additional encounters and loot, or are we more interested in moving on? I don't mind fast-tracking us to the workroom if that is your preference.

On a game around the table I'd probably investigate every last nook and cranny, but PbP is rather slower so I won't attempt a completist run. In general I prefer a balance that keeps the game moving while still getting a taste of where we are. In practice that probably means something like hand waving less interesting encounters and or revealing 2-3 rooms worth of stuff at a time.

Hopefully that makes sense!

Perfect, this is my preferred method. Group dynamics and preferences vary table by table, I just wanted to check and make sure were on the same page.

I agree, but also when it comes to loot I'm hopeful that there will be more stuff for the other characters. This being a witch-heavy AP, I'm getting some sweet items. It makes me feel bad, though, that there hasn't been as much specifically useful items for the others.

Like, that frost-thunder hammer is great and has a once-a-day ranged touch attack to freeze an opponent in a block of ice. And from what I can tell, everyone's passed it up. (Maybe Samuel could take it, since he's got the ranged touch attackss already.)

So, I don't mind passing up loot when it's not going to be used, but we should have those encounters when there's something that could be good for the other characters.

im primarily a dex focused melee caster. unfortunately, this ap exists in a time before that was common lol. im getting by with strength thanks to the cloak

Actually, it'd be a pretty funny image to have Ashling swinging around a giant-sized warhammer. It'd work, too! It's got a +2 bonus, which would negate the -2 you'd have for the oversized weapon and add a nice boost to damage with its 2d6 weapon damage. The black rider's Mantle would also help with the alter self bump in Strength.

(Though that takes away the sight of this teenage girl bashing heads in with an oversized hammer when the Mantle is up)

Thats anime as hell and I kind of love it lol.

Find yourself a glove of storing and it'll be like you have hammerspace!

Too bad effortless lace does not work for bludgeoning weapons!

Regarding the question about light sources, Letitia is carrying the grim lantern and we also have a gem of brightness, both of which work as bullseye lanterns. I don't know who is carrying the gem, but it would be a neat visual if Samuel can lash the gem to the barrel of his gun, but really anyone can use it (though since Ashling and Llewellyn both have darkvision, it's probably in the hands of either Samuel or Callix).

Llewellyn can chain cast the Light cantrip to help Samuel and Callix as needed.

Thank you, that was what I was looking for.

tbh i may take the hammer because i like the idea, but i didnt say or claim it in character yet so i wont use it here

And so it begins again...

GM, if you'll go back through the game's history, you'll see about a 20 percent success rate of Letitia landing her spells and hexes. It was truly depressing.

I had really hoped it was only a phenomenon with Red Sun.

:'(

Aww. Maybe that's just the remainder of the bad luck wearing off. Once we leave this place, it's a fresh start! :D

I'm currently at work and won't be able to access my character sheet until later tonight. However I'm going to have to switch to my bow and attack using that if we need magic. None of my melee weapons are magic