Ringtail's Rise of the Runelords - Chapter 1: Burnt Offerings
The party, along with their newest ally, brave the perils of the Nettlewood in order to face the goblin threat at Thistletop and put an end to the menace once and for all.
...Honestly, I'd love to stick around... but at this point my horrible posting record would probably make it really bad taste to say 'YES COUNT ME IN.'
Don't worry about the past. A lapse around the Holidays is not unusual, so I think we'd have no problem if you wanted to stay in, and the party would even appreciate the extra help ( we're just entering Harrowstone). However, if you feel like you won't have time enough to post in the future, I understand. Either way it was good to have for a while. Cheers.
My RDO will be showing up this afternoon and will be in town again for the next day or two, so my posting will be sparse once he makes and appearance. For some reason he frowns upon playing D&D and chatting on forums while working and will monitor what I'm doing on the security cameras periodically, so it would be safe if I avoid doing such things until he moves on (which usually doesn't take long - he monitors more than 100 properties). Just a heads up.
Gorgoron steadies his spear, and then thrusts at one of the riders. They all appear undamaged at the moment, but since G goes last, he'll attack whichever is most injured by the time his turn comes around, in an effort to eliminate the number of opponents quickly.
I know, right!? Don't worry, they've had quite a few encounters; I'm sure they will wear themselves down soon...otherwise you could always run in the old fashioned way:
"Oh, me? Just goin' for a walk in the goblin infested woods. Fancy meeting you all here. Need a hand?"
Ok Ringtail, the program I used is called MapTools from RPTools.net. You can download it there. It is a program intended to be a virtual tabletop for live games hosted over the internet, but I am experimenting with using it for this type of forum as well. Once I have the map, I can zoom in, add the grid, so on and so forth, as you'll see during the combat that is now posted over on the CC game. Exporting the completed images can be tricky, and I haven't figured it out reliably, so I have fallen back on taking a screenshot and posting that image (it works...). The program has a lot of features, but luckily there a a few tutorials on how to use it on the website as well. I saw some posts on how some people use it to make maps for their tabletop games and then print them out, so I may give that a shot at some point as well.
The basic program comes only with a very small pack of images and textures you can use, so you need to download the image map pack before it starts to be useful (a free file you can legally download, but requires a BitTorrent program to do so). I am still learning with it, so in many cases I cheat and do things a simple way that I'm sure there is some real function that could do it better.
Give it a try and see what you think. If I can be any help, let me know.
No idea if I said this or not but I finally got around to picking what race Ansruath's human half is. I went with Ulfen, was thinking Chelaxian though.
Italy... Spain... Same thing! :P I JEST! Hahaha! Yes you are right. I am sorry.
A lot of the country's aren't perfect analogues, but mixtures of several similar cultures. Speaking of which; I'm still thinking about boycotting Golarion until we get a Mexican analogue...seriously- such a rich culture to utilize.
I do not really like Golarion to much. I like those two sub groups of humans and I like Numeria. And since Numeria is not going to get much love for awhile, see no point in the Golarion setting.
There are portions that I like and portions that I dislike. I like that there are many varied subsettings to accomodate most tastes and that each human ethnicity gets its own unique flavor.
I do not like how, for lack of a better word, common magic is and how high of a level the average person seems to be.
Overall I rate it above average. B-, maybe B.
Pretty decent; I'd prefer to run my own, but I don't have the time or energy to maintain and finish off my setting right now.
I usually end up playing humans. Gnomes are my favorite fantasy race, but most people seem to not appreciate them (there are a lot of preconceived notions about gnomish behavior out there). I've only ever played 2 elves and both died on the 1st session they were in (because exactly that penalty to Con). I don't enjoy playing dwarves; in my campaign setting dwarves are dark, twisted, and vaguely evil underground race- more akin to monsters than a PC race. And halflings wish they were gnomes. I've never played a half-elf in all my years of playing, come to think of it...
*Note to self: Add a curse into We-Be-Halflings that slowly polymorphs one of the characters into a gnome and see how long it takes the group to notice. :)
RPTools doesn't seem to want to load on my work PC. Must be being filtered out. Sigh- looks like I'll keep doing things the old fashioned way.
I've been down with some troubling news from/about the (maybe still) fiance so I haven't been much in the mood to game. I'm going to try to ramp back up my speed; it is just hard to keep the heart in it at the moment.
I owe you all both an apology and an explanation for my extended and unannounced absence. It was insensitive and honestly just rude of me to neglect the responsibilities I willingly took one when deciding to run/play-in these games. I’ve had the time and I should have spent the few minutes necessary to let everyone know what was going on and why I was disappearing and I didn’t; and that was wrong of me. You are all great, friendly players- you deserve better that to be left hanging on my whim, but I’d like to continue running my games if you will let me. I am truly sorry for my selfish behavior and hope that you’ll accept my apology and not think less of me even though I’m aware that this is not my first unexpected hiatus.
As to why I’ve been gone it will be easier for me to just copy and paste an email I sent to player inquiring as to whether or not I was all right after about a week’s absence.
Player’s email to me wrote:
You doing okay, bud?
My response wrote:
Yeah; just buried in life. I've had some free time and have been meaning to get over to the Paizo boards (realizing just now that it has been nearly a week since I've visited, and longer since I've actually done anything), I just haven't had the effort, I guess, for lack of a better word. I've been trying to sort out finances what with taxes being altered by a wage garnishment and medical bills that are piling up from procedure after procedure. I was also recently sent an email from my fiance who was feeling guilty- apparently he cheated on me twice, once 2 years ago and again several weeks ago and wanted to get it out and apologize, which honestly I would have preferred to have been lied to and spent the rest of life ignorant of the matter. If it wasn't enough the most recent instance fell on the week that my dog died (I keep it at my parent's house since my newest apartment doesn't allow them; they foster abused animals and one got into fight with him and he didn't survive the encounter). A stroke claimed my grandmother a couple days later. For my fiance to finalize his immigration we need to have all of our papers signed and done with come the middle of April, but in light of this recent revelation I'm not 100% sure what I want. If I decide this is it for us I've wasted 4 years (a significant time investment for me) and a ton of money and ruin his chances at indefinite leave visa. If not I have to learn to deal, for pretty much ever; it is all very emotionally and mentally draining when added together.
I’ve only added to my troubles by taking on another roommate about a week ago; a friend and coworker who was more or less kicked out of his place and though he is a good guy things have become a bigger hassle than I expected. My goal is for everything to return to some semblance of normality soon. I have a busy couple of days ahead of me, but I should be able to get things sorted out enough that I’d be able to resume a regular posting schedule by Sunday or Monday evening (if you’ll still have me). I know my excuses are poor- we all have life to deal with, but suffice it to say that I’m very embarrassed about how I’ve handled recent matters.
It's all good as far as I'm concerned. Real life happens, and always takes precedence. If you're back, I'd love to continue; if you still need time, I'll still be willing to proceed when you're ready.
Don't worry, I'm here. I'm just trying to get a map worked out for the fortress. Google.docs isn't condusive to the map size and shape and maptools doesn't respond on my work PC. If anyone is familiar with a mapping software and RotRL I'd appreciate a shout out. :)