A place to post what happens to the minions, and the minions themselves.
Present.
Checking in.
Burt should be all set for exploring.
CR 4
Perception +9
Speaks Common, Draconic, Thassilonian, Sylvan, Giant
Survival +9
Kn(Nature) +11
AC 16; HP 36
Watcher want?
I believe highest perceptions are Reve and Schmitty on +11?
I think mine is the lowest at +8.
We should have NPC gear (3,450 gp) right, not PC gear (10,500 gp)?
FYI: The plan when we come across anything questionable is to send summoned creatures first to test for traps and soften up any resistance. No sense in risking ourselves needlessly.
Yep - Minions get NPC gear at start and that is it. Everything else they have to be given (or find).
There's nothing here I think will kill you, so going to zip past some encounters and have already given your map to your 'bosses'.
If it isn't in here, it is not with you.
There is a Large trap door spider hole here (could this be where they Grey Horror originated?). Within the trap door you find no eggs, but you do find a dead man.
Human Skeleton.
Leather armour
short sword
10gp
20gp silver stag lord amulet
Map of an are with a tree, and an X at the tree; does not match any area you have seen.
Some idiot seems to have left a heap of traps here; bear traps, pitfalls, you name it. Judging from the state of the dead animals in the one you found they've been here for a long time.
On the other hand this is Brevoy land - you can't claim it without risking war.
Do you try to clear the traps?
There is some crazy Alchemist named Bokken here.
While not formally educated he seems to have an instinct for alchemy and potion making. He also like being surrounded by wilderness and might be prepared to fight developing his hex, as well as being competition for your city's alchemical exploits.
While there is nothing in this hex, immediately afterwards you start having bad luck... bad luck that resolves into pranks.
There's a crack here that becomes a large cave.
There are a bunch of bushes covered in spider webs
Wow - how is this bridge still standing? Ah - it's not. Fell apart when we sent a couple of summons across.
There's a rope across the river here. Looks like it used to have a ferry. There's some sort of bell... ding ding.
Out of the river rises a man. Obviously long dead. Putrescent Flesh and a dripping Ranseur. He walks across the water towards you.
"You are not my tormentors. Throw the Stag Lord's body into the river that I may look upon his death, or join me instead!"
An old, overgrown statue of Erastil as a stag headed man.
There is some crazy Alchemist named Bokken here.
While not formally educated he seems to have an instinct for alchemy and potion making. He also like being surrounded by wilderness and might be prepared to fight developing his hex, as well as being competition for your city's alchemical exploits.
"My good man, there's no need for this hostility between us. Our kingdom is here to stay and we wish nothing but peace with our neighbors. Surely we can come to some sort of mutually beneficial arrangement."
Diplomacy
There's a rope across the river here. Looks like it used to have a ferry. There's some sort of bell... ding ding.
Out of the river rises a man. Obviously long dead. Putrescent Flesh and a dripping Ranseur. He walks across the water towards you.
"You are not my tormentors. Throw the Stag Lord's body into the river that I may look upon his death, or join me instead!"
"The Stag Lord is dead. My master and the other Runelords thoroughly trounced him and his men at his own keep. I believe we could probably find the body and throw it to you if that is your desire. Do you need the whole body or is just the head ok? If just the head then we'll be able to do that much quicker. "
While there is nothing in this hex, immediately afterwards you start having bad luck... bad luck that resolves into pranks.
Panhorn suspects you are afflicted by Fey. Sometimes these can be "gifted" enough to leave you alone. They prefer shiny, tinkly and interesting things.
The Fae are probably relying on invisibility and stealth to remain unseen.
Q: Pay them off, or fight them - or call home to the Runelords for how they wish to proceed?
There's a crack here that becomes a large cave.
Panhorn notices a glint in the wall is actually a vein of gold. Would take some work, but this could become the start of a gold mine.
There are a bunch of bushes covered in spider webs
Panhorn knows these are Chew Spiders and Fangberries (delicious berries in slow growing, hard, heavily spiked bushes).
There is some crazy Alchemist named Bokken here.
While not formally educated he seems to have an instinct for alchemy and potion making. He also like being surrounded by wilderness and might be prepared to fight developing his hex, as well as being competition for your city's alchemical exploits.
"My good man, there's no need for this hostility between us. Our kingdom is here to stay and we wish nothing but peace with our neighbors. Surely we can come to some sort of mutually beneficial arrangement."
Diplomacy 1d20+10
"My land! MY land! Stay out! No Buildings! Don't need you! Poor Oleg!" *snuffle* "We trade. Trade is good. I make potions. You run trading post. Here is notice."
The notice is a wanted posted from Bokken, offering a serious discount (25%) to anyone who can bring him a large bucket of Fangberries.
Hex E: Take 10 for 20 Disable Device if possible. If not: disable device
Hex G: "Greetings to a fellow alchemist. Perhaps we can be of mutual benefit? I am sure there are supplies you require, or some other task we may assist with."
Hex L: "An honest to god gold mine. This seems like an excellent place to set up a kobold outpost."
Hex O: Know (nature)
Know (nature)
Survival
"Berries? Perhaps we can lure the spiders out and burn them down so as to acquire the berries."
There's a rope across the river here. Looks like it used to have a ferry. There's some sort of bell... ding ding.
Out of the river rises a man. Obviously long dead. Putrescent Flesh and a dripping Ranseur. He walks across the water towards you.
"You are not my tormentors. Throw the Stag Lord's body into the river that I may look upon his death, or join me instead!""The Stag Lord is dead. My master and the other Runelords thoroughly trounced him and his men at his own keep. I believe we could probably find the body and throw it to you if that is your desire. Do you need the whole body or is just the head ok? If just the head then we'll be able to do that much quicker. "
"Give me his body."
"Unlucky bugger, one of the Stag Lords though, no great loss. Let me have a look at that map."
"Not our land, not our problem. Bastard should have put up signs though..." he growls
"Might be worth haulin' back, know he's popular with some round here. Get that big creepy spider I heard about ta drag it, or is Lissala the jealous type?"
Reve spits "Never heard of a fae worth havin' around. Damn pests is what they are." he mutters at Panhorn's suggestion who is responsible for their ill luck; it definitely fit. "Happy to deal with them if you lot don't have the stomach. Any of you got a spell to let me see em?"
"Fangberries? Never heard of em." Reve growls, lookin at the thorny bushes. "You want em or not? Spiders don't much bother me."
"I remember seeing a large number of undead in town. I think that we should head back to the Stag Lord's fort and see if his body is there. If it is, we give it back to that...thing. If not, we should return to the Runelords."
"These are fangberries. Didn't Bokken say he needed them? Reve, if you think you can gather them with little danger, have at it."
"These fey that are pranking us, I think that stag amulet we found is shiny enough to distract them so they leave us alone. I'd rather not attack them."
There's a rope across the river here. Looks like it used to have a ferry. There's some sort of bell... ding ding.
Out of the river rises a man. Obviously long dead. Putrescent Flesh and a dripping Ranseur. He walks across the water towards you.
"You are not my tormentors. Throw the Stag Lord's body into the river that I may look upon his death, or join me instead!""The Stag Lord is dead. My master and the other Runelords thoroughly trounced him and his men at his own keep. I believe we could probably find the body and throw it to you if that is your desire. Do you need the whole body or is just the head ok? If just the head then we'll be able to do that much quicker. "
"Give me his body."
"That'll take a little more time, but your bargain is agreeable. We'll return. "
Regrouping some time to discuss plans:
"Here are my suggestions:" Schimtty replies
Put up signs, but otherwise ignore the trapped land for now. Reve is right. It's not our problem
We could burn the forest down with the irritating fey in it, though then we couldn't harvest the wood. Beyond that I say we call the rune lords. They may have more luck than us at finding and exterminating these buggers. The question becomes would they prefer to be bothered and have the wood or to not have the wood and not be bothered?
Spider's, Berries, Hermit: I'll send a few fire elementals into the swarm. That should take them out sufficiently. Then or during we can rip up those berry bushes. It'll give us some leverage with the alchemist. Alternately we could just kill the alchemist. I'm not sure how stable he is anyway. Clearly he's a bit mad.
Statue: We should probably ask the rune lords. They may or may not want that thing in town. If they do they can send the horror to bring it back.
I'll write a missive notating our progress and send it to the rune lords to see how they'd like to proceed in these matters.
Schmitty pens a note listing the progress and requests that the body of the stag lord be sent to their current location. After discussion and adding anything else form the companions he places it in a tube he hands it to his familiar who flies off toward the palace.
An old, overgrown statue of Erastil as a stag headed man.
Statue: We should probably ask the rune lords. They may or may not want that thing in town. If they do they can send the horror to bring it back.
"Although I respect the Rune Lords, I doubt they would want a statue of a competing god in their town. I'm hesitant to even tell them this is here for fear that they may destroy it." Tom said as he cleared some of the overgrowth off the representation of his god.
Before the group set out, Tom knelt down and said a brief prayer asking Erastil to bless them on their journey.
An old, overgrown statue of Erastil as a stag headed man.
Statue: We should probably ask the rune lords. They may or may not want that thing in town. If they do they can send the horror to bring it back."Although I respect the Rune Lords, I doubt they would want a statue of a competing god in their town. I'm hesitant to even tell them this is here for fear that they may destroy it." Tom said as he cleared some of the overgrowth off the representation of his god.
Before the group set out, Tom knelt down and said a brief prayer asking Erastil to bless them on their journey.
"Oh. Good point. He's the traveling woodsy god or something, right? If that's the case I say just leave him where he is and forget about it. He likes nature. He's in nature. Problem solved. " **Brushes hands together in a dusting off motion. **
Spider's, Berries, Hermit: I'll send a few fire elementals into the swarm. That should take them out sufficiently. Then or during we can rip up those berry bushes. It'll give us some leverage with the alchemist. Alternately we could just kill the alchemist. I'm not sure how stable he is anyway. Clearly he's a bit mad.
Reve lets out a derisive snort. "And burn the thicket with em. Bokken's nuts but he knows what he's doing at least. Run it up the chain, let the Runelords figure out what to do with them and him."
"These fey that are pranking us, I think that stag amulet we found is shiny enough to distract them so they leave us alone. I'd rather not attack them."
"You can try and bribe em if ya want, but if they bug me they're getting an arrow." he says, and takes to riding with one knocked until the 'pranking' stops, one way or another.
Reve relents on the issue with a grunt, fairly indifferent to the issue to start with. He had no love for Erastil these days...
J: Reve gets nothing from the map... perhaps it is for an area you haven't seen yet, perhaps just that it is a really bad map.
E: Burt disables a few traps the group comes across, but the decision is to leave them.
G: No action at this time. Diplomacy to happen later, possibly with Fangberries.
K: 20gp stag lord amulet has not been given to the Fey yet. Reve is confident the party could take them. Diplomacy possibly incoming from a Runelord.
L: Done
O: Reve picks the berries. He gets bitten a lot, but doesn't seem particularly hurt by it. Little bit of healing and he'll be fine.
N: Bridge is gone
P: Decision is made to give body to the thing in the water. Next time group heads back to base it can bring the body back. Delays cause nightmares, so guessing this will happen quickly. Please state if anyne has a problem with this, and who is doing the actual handover.
M: Tom cleaned a bit of overgrowth off the statue, but the decision was largely made to leave it as it is. Runelords were informed, but in a low key way.
P: Well Schmitty did the talking last time, but Reve is unconcerned by dirty work of most any kind, so he'll toss it if nobody else wants to.
Hmm, what about hexes B, F, H, & I, what where these ones? F in particular is probably the hex we'll want to claim next (since G has a crazy hermit still to be dealt with), and then H & I are also valuable farmlands.
From the Desk of the Grand Diplomat, Ronald Dranstus, Runelord of Humility- "Excellent work thus far. Return to Threshold at your earliest convenience so that I may accompany you to speak with this alchemist you have encountered. I trust you acquired the berries of which he spoke. In addition, I shall have the corpse of the bandit leader prepared for transport, to alleviate the demands of this watery undead creature. I await your speedy return."
-Ronald-
"Well, that settles that, I think. Lets head back ASAP."
sorry guys
I think I screwed up two of the locations I gave you; got the hex wrong (the letters I was using were different to the letters in the book, and I used the ones from the book for those.)
I'll give you the extra hexes as 'freebies'.
I think I might need to rethink my 'numbering' scheme. Any suggestions?
The stag lord's fort is a ruin. The cave is a resource.
So far that is it.
Letters for hexes with stuff in them and numbers for hexes without stuff? The only complicated thing there is if we miss something hidden.
You could always create a coordinate system. Numbers along the top, letters down the side, so Threshold would be at C4 (or possibly D4 if you counted the very top row of half hexes), the stag lord's fort at Q would be J1 etc. I know the map is much bigger than what you've shown us though (and you've rotated it as well I believe), so you'd have to adjust accordingly
Can we get a gameplay thread to dot so this thread attaches to our campaigns tab?
ok
So uhh, what are we waiting for in both threads anyway? If you're short on time to post Harakani that's cool, but if you're waiting for some sort of decision from us I think you might need to give us a nudge in the right direction ;)
Well, I was hoping to get 4715 done. I had thought I was waiting on decisions fro the group for that one.
I'm trying to think about how to represent the map. I like your coordinate system, Forsten, but I worry about its complexity. At the moment I'm tempted to use names - is a little bit of metadata but is less confusing.
"Statue of Erastil" is a lot less confusing than "M".
If I was doing the hexes less quickly then It would not be such a problem; it is possible this is a problem that will solve itself.
K: is the amulet going to the Fey? I'd like to resolve this and at this point I mostly need to know if you're going to try gifts or violence.
G: Ronald wants to talk to the mad alchemist Bokken with Fangberries - although if it is just him it should probably be done in the Runelords gameplay thread.
P: Confirmation that Reve is doing the body handover, and if it has been modified beforehand (I believe is mended together, has no equipment, and is as undeadifyingproof as you can do it.
That said, time has been a bit short recently, I've been sick, in a bridal party (as a equal-best-man) and work has gone a bit crazy. Thanks for poking me :)
No worries, everyone can do with a poke every now and then :p For the map references well, it's you who will be doing the most stuff with the maps, so it's up to you, but I don't think coordinates are all that complicated. It's pretty much what street map directories use (or used to before GPS systems become so common)
K: Reve has made his stance pretty clear, so someone else should probably say whether they're going to try using the amulet or not. There was also some talk of Ronald coming to talk to them.
G: Yeah, think it was just him unless he wants the minions present for some reason.
P: Yeah, that sounds about right. Nobody else made any other suggestions that I can recall.
K: Panhorn thinks it would be a better idea to not use violence and try the amulet or other shiny "gifts".
Thanks for poking me :)