Shattered Star

Game Master Zesdead

Teldon, Strange Aeons is the next Adventure Path - it looks to be pretty exciting and, if you are into the Cthulhu mythos then it's shaping up to be awesome.

....although it's the Thassilonian exploration 'Ruins of Azlant' in a year's time that I am most excited about (if only because of this game and how it may interact / refer to Shattered Star and Runelords).

I could give it a try, if you are Gming it, Zed.. ^^

Hi, folks.

I think I'm ready to return, and I'm hoping to resume daily postings. Realistically, my rate will probably be 4-5 posts a week.

Thanks for your patience and understanding with me.

Now to read through the past six weeks of the gameplay thread to get caught up...

. . .

I am very, very excited to read Strange Aeons, which I just downloaded over the weekend. Ditto Horror Adventures.

And, I am also really looking forward to receiving two more horrific RPG products I've backed on Kickstarter: Richard Pett's The Blight and Sandy Petersen's Cthulhu Mythos for Pathfinder. Both of those should be dropping sometime this fall.

It's good to see things beginning to get better for you Zee; keep hanging in there :)

Yeah, just echoing Briana's words... really good to see you back with us. At the moment, we've kind of put you into off-screen action with Officer Kasadei (returning the derro victims to the Arvensoar) whilst the other folks head back to the Irespan... but, if you want me to wrap up the Arvensoar in a single post and get back before Teldon and the gang head out, we can get Ziomarra into the last part of the 'Shards of Sin' adventure.

Woohoo! Zee's back! From what GM Zed has said, it looks like we just have this one fight and then we're done with Book 1. :D

Eeeeee!

This would make my third (AP) game ever to actually make it through the first book...which in one way is a lot considering how many games fail but in another way it's really not that much considering how many games get started (and then usually fail)...

Eeeeee!

This would make my third (AP) game ever to actually make it through the first book...which in one way is a lot considering how many games fail but in another way it's really not that much considering how many games get started (and then usually fail)...

What else have you managed to get past Book 1 in? I've played (am playing) in an Iron Gods campaign that has moved into Book 2 - although the pace has dropped right off now :(

...and that's it. I was in a Reign of Winter game that stalled before we even levelled up to Level 2... and obviously, I am in DM Nate's RotRL...

...and that's it. Guess I'm more of a GM then I am a Player :D

And an excellent GM you are, sir!

^ What Joanna said!

Funny thing, the other two games are both Carrion Crown. The first one is using E7 rules and is one of the first PbP games I ever got into here on the forums. The second one I was offered a spot in and it's a much more standard affair but with a quicker posting rate so it's been catching up to the E7 game and will likely pass it. I normally don't double-dip APs but I have a weakness for wanting to play with GMs/players that I already know are awesome :)

Awwww shucks, thanks folks...

Also Briana, you can probably add Legendary Planet's 'The Assimilation Strain' to that list... It's more of a prelude / book zero but there's no point over-analysing it!!

This is true! It's definitely at least the size of a standard module, right? I'll be sure to add it to my list :)

This is true! It's definitely at least the size of a standard module, right? I'll be sure to add it to my list :)

It's a funny one really... It takes you up to Level 2 (and a bit) so it's sort of equivalent to the 'old' 32 page Paizo modules (prior to the 64 page epics from Dragon's Demand onwards)... but it's a little less content than a standard AP book 1. We'll just have to push on through with 'To Worlds Unknown' and then you can definitively say you have done Book 1 of the Legendary Planet AP!

So... I'm waiting on you folks finishing your discussions about how to get back out to the Crow (and a little bit of a roll call as to how many are heading out)... Hoping that I can get a GM post up tomorrow that reflects your decision and sets us on our path to completing book 1...

...I've sort of got an internal target of putting Shards of Sin on the shelf before our Second Anniversary (15th of September). So much for my original vision of a book per year (or better!)

I'm not with it enough for long posts yet but I'm ready to go with shorter posts whenever everyone else is. My vote for getting back is the boat- it's a known quantity (there might be monsters or traps in the sewers). And, if we can spare the time in there I would like to make some more specific notes and work with Briana on some sketches.[/ooc]

Hey, we've had fun, and if you take out Ravenmoor, it's only been 18-19 months. That's not too bad.

Miss Z and me (as other characters, of course) finished book 1 of Carrion Crown recently.
It was a little too quick for my taste, unfortunatly.

As a GM, i'm trying to finish book 1 of Second Darkness, and we're halfway through the trilogy of Crypt of the Everflame/Mask of the Living god/the third book whose name escape me right now.^^^

If I had the try a new AP as a GM, it would be either Mummy's Mask or the anniversary edition of Rise of the Runelords

As Arsith said, my Carrion Crown game just finished Book One. (We finished just before I had to go on hiatus.)

My Runelords game is getting close to the end... Two levels of Thistletop to go!

Woot woot!

Sorry I had to bail on that one, Zee. :(

Joanna: I haven't really progressed that game much at all since you left, but you are certainly missed over there! I am hoping that you might reconsider, but that's totally up to you.

Zed: I'm becomming a little less-than-thrilled with the game mechanics of variant multiclassing. When we gain our next level, would you be OK with me re-building Zee a little? I'm thinking of multiclassing into the Evangelist prestige class. If I did that, I'd like to re-build her without the VMC-cleric mechanics.

If the others will have me, then heck yeah! I miss playing my silly little elfin wizard. :)

Zed: I'm becomming a little less-than-thrilled with the game mechanics of variant multiclassing. When we gain our next level, would you be OK with me re-building Zee a little? I'm thinking of multiclassing into the Evangelist prestige class. If I did that, I'd like to re-build her without the VMC-cleric mechanics.

No problem at all... however, in terms of 'expectation management', you folks probably won't level to Level 6 for a while yet. So, if you do want to rebuild at Level 5 during the next bit of down-time, you can do that. Otherwise, if you want to hold off until you level up... that's fine as well.

I'd have to wait for level 6 anyway, as the prereqs for the prestige class require 3rd-level spellcasting or 5 ranks in some skills?

Di somebody move me on the map? I could have sworn I was standing forward and to the left of where I am now. It isn't a big deal, but it's confusing me.

That was probably me shuffling folks around according to where I thought their pre-combat actions placed them... feel free to relocate as you wish.

So, I've just finished reading all the posts in this game and there's some things I had forgotten that Joanna would have wanted to square away.

-Delivering Captain Brast's brooch to his wife, along with news of his fate.
-Letting Captain Brast know they've done what they set out to do.
-Writing a letter to Brother/Uncle Titus asking if there's a way to turn a ghoul back.
-Writing a letter to the Korzhas and seeing how they are doing.
-Finding out if the Golden Key has set sail. She could ask Lady Heidmarch to check on this for her since the less she contacts Mr. Donovan for now, the better.
-Laying the people we've found in the Crow to rest, if we haven't done that already.
-See how Shel is holding up.

I know that's a lot, but we should have time between books to get all of that sorted.

Sounds like a good list of things - and the GM has a few plans as well - there's definitely a few things to do in the 'semi' down time before the next adventure... If anyone else has such a list of jobs / loose-ends, it would be useful to post here so I can plan for the next chapter of your adventure.

Wow, thanks for the list Jo! I feel bad for forgetting about Captain Brast's dilemma already :\

As far as personal projects or anything like that, I don't believe Briana will have much to resolve unless something new comes up. Probably the closest would be to check up on the Korzhas but that's more of a group thing :)

I'm still thinking of retraining her Fortune hex to something else if we have some downtime between Book 1 and 2, but that's it as far as 'mechanics' go.

Careful, never know when GM Zed might get the idea to have Briana's parents have sudden concerns over their daughter's safety.

*paranoia increases*

Honestly, I really don't have a clue what Zed has planned for Briana. The only reason I know for Joanna is because I asked if he was still rolling with it, and even then I don't know more than the gist of it. I just gave him the hooks.

Hehe I know, but you do raise a good point. So far I've imagined that Briana's parents went with the whole, "You're dead to us/We have no daughter" route after she ran off but it's possible something could happen to make them change their minds! I mainly went with that because I didn't want to have two people in the party whose parents are looking for them, especially since our backgrounds are already similar enough as it is :)

True, and that's something I had not thought of. Still, it could make for an interesting turn of events.

That said, I can't wait to see what our esteemed GM has in store for us.

Jo hit most of the big thing (now that I know where/how Fenster is), but I would like to gather samples of the toxic fungus to experiment on. I can't let go of the whole swampseer poison thing until I can adequately explain how the derro's victims were drugged.

Also, we brought a really nice statue to that Consortium auction and I used the unspecified selling price to buy a bunch of artifacts that were selling below they're value... We kind of hand waved it all because it furthered the plot but I think it would be kind of awesome to start a small antiquities business with them (as Pelius Crispin) after all, I need to work on my net worth if I want to one day provide a suitable living for a noblewoman-wife... I don't know if you want to kind of handwave the mechanics of that and use it as some background flavor, or if you want to use downtime rules (which I'm not really familiar with)? I'm not looking for any in game financial advantage but it could serve some RP purpose (and the flavor of Teldon thinking practically about providing for a future family now that he's in a relationship just fits).

That's an awesome idea Teldon! It's also adorable that he's already thinking of the future too, hehe. I guess I'll have to give some more thought to what Briana might want to do with herself long-term.

I've got a PC in another game that's engaged; I wonder which one of them will end up getting hitched first? :3

Oh- maybe it's the drugs but I don't remember ever actually meeting our/my contact at the Consortium after finishing feast of ravenmoor... I was worried he might be the one in the crow when we ran into the last tower girls because they told us he was gone for a few days... I don't know if there was going to be financial compensation there or just RP but either way I'd like to tie that up too.

@Briana- I'm not sure how long it'll be before Teldon is prepared to make a proposal (probably not until he's confident he can provide a comfortable lifestyle), but given how much trouble he has letting go of even little things he certainly assumes/plans to be together the rest of his life...

You haven't, and I was thinking that we could have Teldon, Briana, and Zee take care of that while Arsith, Shadlah, and Joanna take care of breaking the news to Mrs. Brast.

Also, I'm ramping my RotRL game back up and wanted to see if any of you guys might be interested in playing? I'm waiting to see what my players want to do since we lost a player and I'm dropping a GMPC (as much fun as she can be, I should never have done it,) so this is more of a testing the waters kinda thing.

Depending on what the party is looking for I could maybe whip up a character but since I'm already in Nate's game I'll wait to see if someone else from here would want a spot first :)

Tempting, but I'm at my game limit at the moment.

Here on the Paizo boards, I'm GMing Runelords and Ravenloft, and playing in Shattered Star, Carrion Crown, and Legendary Planet.

IRL, I'm playing in a weekly Dungeon World campaign and a roughly-monthly FATE Accelerated sci-fi game. And I was just invited into a Roll20-based D&D 5e game run by my best friend from college. (Let's just say that in college, we played 1st ed AD&D...and decided not to convert to 2e when it came out...)

Joanna - as you know, I too am already playing in Nate's Runelords game so I don't think I will take you up on your offer... Plus, if I'm honest, I really am at my maximum on games - I could do more but to do so would probably result in a loss of volume / quality across what I do have...

...and yeah, Teldon hasn't caught back up with the Aspis Consortium (his contact was unavailable when 'Pellius' last asked for him) and that storyline should definitely be part of the plan for the Book One to Book Two transition.

It's all good. I was just asking to see. I think it may be moot point anyway.

That said, I'm planning on switching things up. The general story will be the same but...

I know I just started playing again, but tomorrow I'm flying out to Los Angeles for a few days. After tonight, I will likely not be posting again until Monday. (I've never been to California before-- I'm really looking forward to this trip!)

Enjoy California... I've spent a few days in LA and in San Francisco before... Good times :) I will GMPC as appropriate (note that Friday is probably a not posting day... taking 8 year old son to London as a treat) - it's probably fine here... the friends have the Shriezyx mostly under control... however, in the Legendary Planet game... things are about to go downhill quickly!!!

As an FYI I'm working night shift the next three nights (tonight, Friday, Saturday) and sleeping during the day so my posting rates will likely drop during the time. I'll try and catch up/keep up as best as I can but feel free to bot Briana as needed to keep things moving along.

That was an awesome post Arsith!

Thankies!

Yep, it was.

It also made me realize that when Jo does finally get how Arsith feels for her, there's going to be a really hard conversation for her.

Where is everyone on the map? I'm considering having Shadlah melee, but I don't know who's where. Arsith's post suggests she's in melee with the enemy, but the map doesn't reflect that, and I don't know what to do.

I look forward to our conversation, Jo. It will be interesting to roleplay that.

Now that I'm home, I tried to adjust the map to reflect more or less where I think everyone currently is. I guess technically Arsith might be in Joanna's square, standing over her, but I'm not savy enough with the mapping to do that so I put her in the next available square and moved Briana up to where Arsith had been standing.

I do know Zee and Teldon's current positions are correct for sure! (Until they act this round, anyway.)