The Beginning of All Things (Inactive)

Game Master Terquem

Marcus earns enough experience to take him to the next level. He should decide what task he wants to begin next. The design and rebuilding of the covered bridge will take him and his father three months’ time. The soldiers of Alodoa want to build a smithy in Lakeside, to complement his father’s workshop in Riverside and several residents of Woodbridge will be asking for long bows and strong arrows, which Marcus can begin fashioning with the help of the Maetaur.

I have set myself a goal of trying to create a decent map showing all the residences, farms, and buildings of Woodbridge so that Marcus can get a better idea of what he is responsible for helping to rebuild. The village has two carpenters, and a stone mason, but all the tools needed will have to come from the Dale workshop, while Yanil Asserin (elven male) and Sunna Havanis will take up the responsibility of designing any new buildings that are constructed (these two elves have experience with building Alodoan style, small homes).

so I wrote this ridiculously long, boring, pointless description of the countryside to get the party moving toward Gowen's Crossing, you're almost there.

Anyone else going to post?

I will lol I missed the post!

trying to update games - dealing with internet issues, stay tuned

Np!

checking in.

My Internet is back, got three games updated yesterday, working on a post to get this moving, should have it up early tomorrow

Is this thing on, tap tap tap, hello?

<<peeks out from behind pile of textbooks>>

Apologies, this is a...more difficult semester. Will try to toss a post up tonight.

Ah damn it. I'm sorry, I was just on like a week vacation and I could have sworn I posted in here saying I'd be gone.

Damn it.

I'm back, post first thing tomorrow morning!!!!

I'm posting a lot of stuff, I hoe everyone is following along.

Doing my best. I apologize for the short posts on my end.

No worries as long as I don't confuse or lose anyone

Getting there :D

I should have a post up tomorrow!

Probably after all this business IRL is settled I'll have questions :P

Hey Terquem- just an idea I'd like to put forward. Something I think would be a good fit, stolen from David Weber's Honor Harrington series. What do you think of the idea of the Alodoan Imperial heir being forbidden, by law & custom, from marrying into the nobility? All such pairings must with someone from the common classes. This prevents the nobles from having family influence on the Emperor, as well as prevents fights amongst the nobles under some generational connection to the Imperial throne, since everyone would always know such claims would lack legitimacy.

As another benefit, it would also help cement the loyalty of the common people of the Empire to the throne since the Emperor would be viewed as "one of them". And since the Imperial consort had to be a commoner, the Imperial family would need to connect with those folks, giving the commoners another, more personal, way to be heard by those in power.

Opinions?

This talk of nobility reminds me of GoT, and why it takes so long for me to post!

It's like when you first watch the series, or even read the books. You are thrown into such a fully developed plethora of lore, history, people, that it takes a few baths in it to truly understand whats going on.

I don't think I have questions yet because I'm still piecing together the puzzle of U / Alodonoan + Tafganor, as well as the other races lineages / what my character would and wouldn't know.

I might read the PbP from the beginning, as I've done with others, to further my understanding of this world :3

I am doing a little audit/file maintenance of the folders I keep all my game documents in and just for anyone's curiosity

Last year I wrote 19,632 words for this game

This year I am already at 7,003

woooh boy, that's what I'm talking about! :P

I think I'll eventually just focus on one big great game.

In the meantime... I have so much more to learn about pathfinder! :P

Had a minor computer set back, should be back to posting on Wednesday.

Ah, of course, recently there was a change to the way DropBox allowed users to share files. I am going to have to go back to all my games and update links to images I have saved to DropBox

Also, as a heads up warning. I will be travelling to Redondo beach, CA for training beginning on 3/19 and until 3/25. I expect to have little to no ability to update images (almost everything is saved to my home computer) and if I can post to games I will try, but the class I am taking is supposed to be challenging and I might be doing homework projects every night.

Thanks, everyone

Take your time! Gives me more time to read :P

Any of you OG player's available for questions on the lore as well? If so, I'll just post them now and again in this discussion thread.

There is a link at the top of the page to the Journal where many things about the setting can be learned, not so much this specific campaign, but the general notes on Alodoa that all the players have helped create

There is a website bug that is preventing new posts from being listed in your campaign tab. They are working on it. I don't think it will be fixed until tomorrow. They have a fix but didn't want to launch it right before going home.

Here is the thread I have been reading regarding this.

Just heard about the bug now, caused me to ignore my players in my own campaign for about 3 days or so -.- lol

IS anyone going to respond to Stolos? I'll jump in with Darlene here tonight if no one else has anything to say

Finally I am all moved. Ah.

Drove 14 hours straight to South Carolina, and now I work from home, so I'll be posting much more competent things again :P

Now to finally tackle the history behind this game ;)

Fornaggabbin – is a word in the common language of Urandomans, it means “ogre” in a way, but more specifically means something like, cursed with growth.

Any sort of common creature can become Fornaggabbin, and it is generally believed that this can happen if anything living enters a cursed placed under one of the many sacred hills in central Urandoma.

The secret of these hill mysteries is said to be known only to the lyph people (fairies of Urandoma), but as you are all learning, some, if not all, of these mysterious places are tied to the ancient battle between the tafganor and the human/Maetaur/gymnaga alliance of a thousand years ago. What it is starting to look like is that some powerful, and possibly now corrupted, magic is at work in these mysterious places and when creatures find a way into them, they do not always come out the same. Some, as we have seen in this game such as the huge Decapus in the bogs to the northeast of Woodbridge, and the Boggards (Bullywug Fornaggabbin) in the eastern Green Wood can become considerably dangerous.

It is possible that the “cave giant” below you, is a tafganoor fornaggabbin, and not a true giant at all

I build my maps, for running games, mostly in AutoCad. So today I moved one of the AutoCad maps to CC3+ and tried to create a fantasy map. I linked to it in the header of the game post (Woodbridge and Castletown)

I'm still working on cleaning it up and I may try a different font for the text but tell me what you think

Each square is supposed to be 15 by 15 miles

Looks ok to me. I would change that font though. It's fine when it's bigger but hard to read when smaller. For example Woodbridge is fine, but Gowen's Crossing is almost unreadable, at least the first word.

I tried a different font and adjusted the size a small bit. I hope it looks better

I'm trying to get some kind of a usable encounter map built to represent the difficulty in the elevation issues associated with this encounter. Give me a bit more time, please.

No problem. I have my calculus to keep me busy. Lovely, lovely calculus...

<<starts staring off into space as numbers whiz by>>

Yup, it's finals season.

Calculus is a very important skill to know..helps immensely with insomnia...

I am hoping that tomorrow I will be able to put up a map to help everyone decide what the next actions will be.

Also, I want to remind you that you have two NPCs in your party, Darlene, the Maetaur Bard, and Aniktah. You really do not yet know what Aniktah is capable of, if she has any skills at all.

Also, this weekend I'll be setting up some new playground equipment for my granddaughters, and otherwise getting pulled into a few Easter day shenanigans, so my posting might be slow this weekend (well, slower than it is for my usual slowness anyway).

Eat some chocolate if you are allowed such things (I'm currently not, sheesh)and have a happy Easter

My stupid desire to try and build a pretty encounter map is holding this game up unnecessarily. Tonight I will have a map posted here that will work for the battle, no matter what. It might be ugly, but I am going to get it done

Once you have an idea of where the enemy tokens are in relation to your characters, you can make your final plans. And remember, I don’t have any problem with players working out plans out of character in the discussion thread. You don’t need to play out every aspect of the planning in-character in the game thread. Once you all have an idea of what each of you is going to do, and how you intend to approach either the tafganor on the ledge below you at the cave, or the giant on the valley floor below that. We can post in game and get things rolling again.

I am very sorry for the delay

Okay, I've got a quickly generated map, linked at the top of the page, called approach to the cave - let me try to explain what you can see

There is a trail that leads from the top of the hill to the northwest (if the top of the map is north, then this would be to the left) it winds down the hill on the northwest side and then turns back, a switchback, to the east and approaches the ledge where the cave entrance is located.

Your party can approach without being seen to within about fifty feet of the cave through light cover of trees, bushes and large rocks.

From this position you can use the references on the map to describe where you want to move, in one round increments.

If you want to stealth, make sure you tell me you are trying to move slowly and quietly, after the party has moved there is a chance the orcs might hear you approaching

Also, you do not have to approach the orcs here, you can continue down to the valley floor to approach the giant, but if you do so, the orcs at the cave will automatically see you (they have an unobstructed view of the giants position

Please take your time to talk to each other out of character and make sure each of you knows what the others are going to do

The last time we had a big battle, I tried to make sure the party had a plan, and it ended up that Calex and another caster both tried to cast the same spell at the same target in the first encounter round

I will not roll initiative unless the orcs detect your approach. If you can sneak in close enough to attack the orcs in a surprise round without being detected, you can have a surprise round.

Any questions?

I have two burning hands but I'd rather save them for if we have to fight trolls. I have a glitterdust we can use, but most of my other spells are best used for fighting other casters since these aren't undead.

That means my slumber hex is probably the best offensive weapon I'll have in this fight.

I'm in a similar situation. I've got spells that are geared towards the trolls later. Other than that, some buffs, but not much else.

I say we approach the orcs from the top and try to get as close a possible quietly. My stealth is gonna suck but if we can get to 40 feet or so, I can charge on the first round. I am assuming if we take the trail we will enter the map at the top or am I wrong? Will taking the trail put us right where we are on the map? The key here will be for the melee types to get in the orcs faces quickly. Ranged should be able to engage them from about 50 feet or so unless our line of sight is blocked.

Marwan, I'd probably use that glitterdust on the orcs here to see if you can blind several of them. Slumber works well too, but only one at a time.

I can stealth down and think the sleep hex on the giant who shoyld have a bad will save would be dandy followed by at that same moment a surprise attack on those orcs.

The giant is not with the orcs. He is further down on the valley floor and may not be in range of the hex. It will take time for him to come up the hill to where the cave entrance is.

Yes, Robert you are incorrect. The trail that leaves the top of the page should be interpreted as the trail that leads downhill toward the valley floor

(although it is straight away from the cave for a good distance, it too will begin going first to the west/northwest, switching back to the east, and again repeating this one more time, as it winds down the hill side from this level to the next level below, where there is a small pond, and finally a short waterfall into a larger pond on the valley floor – that trail is at least 1200 feet long – and this is the distance the giant would have to cover to reach the caves if he noticed the attack on the orcs)

The trail that descended from the top of the hill to the level where the cave/orc guards are located approaches the cave from the left, through the trees and bushes on the left side of the map. It is, at this level, a difficult trail to find, but as your party descended from above, where the trail was easier to find, you can use the cover of the trees on the left, to approach, or if you want to, circle to the north through the trees and get into a position to charge down the path heading away from the cave right at the orcs

Moving through the trees on the left side of the map should not be considered, at the moment, to be difficult terrain with any movement penalties (there is no “urgency” at the moment and you can move through the trees and buses at a slow, cautious pace). Remember you have to tell me that you are trying to be stealthy and make an appropriate roll, or I will assume that any movement you make to approach the orcs is not done with stealth.

Thank you for the correction. If the giant is that far away he isn't going to notice us as there is a +1 to the DC of a perception check for every 10 feet.

I say we try and sneak through the bushes and if we're discovered, we'll just have to attack them and drop them one at a time.

What do you guys think?

Pretty sure I'm game, but let me read everything again. It's been quite a few days :P

Robert's plan sounds solid, but I think we need to have a contingency for if the orcs try to run, which will probably happen as soon as they realize they're outnumbered. It might help if we only have a few people approach at once, hopefully giving the orcs an overinflated sense of confidence.

If you are all ready, you can begin posting your moves in the game thread. Remember you can always come back to this thread with questions for the other players

Well, this is awkward. I thought I was being helpful in giving everyone a chance to prepare, and now it seems everyone is hesitant to approach the cave

Actualy its me thats being awkward- as in I just got out of the hospital for a dislocated knee. I'm home now to recover, so I'll read up on what I missed and post tommorow. Sorry for hanging things up.

Ouch! Are you expected to make a full recovery? It sounds real painful, so take it easy