The Father of Waters

Game Master Fighting Chicken

LOL

You're going to need a few more Nargun if you want to bring down this party!

LOL

You're going to need a few more Nargun if you want to bring down this party!

ISTIEL!!!!!!

Ix-nay on the... Oh, what's the use :P

There seems to be consensus to head for the tower. The Nargun are slow enough that they can be avoided. Istiel will be conscious in anywhere from 12 seconds to about a minute, in accordance to her unconscious reflex save (base save -5 for being helpless).

As Oios has fancy teleport, if you decide to avoid the Nargun, he can lead them on a merry chase.

Combat is effectively over, unless you all want to keep fighting...

unconscious reflex save

I...

Uh...

But...

Okay, I'm not going to complain, and will pretend it's a luck saving throw.

Because she is helpless she does not get Evasion either.

Also- GET TO DA TOWAH

GM Belicose Poultry wrote:

unconscious reflex save

I...

Uh...

But...

Okay, I'm not going to complain, and will pretend it's a luck saving throw.

Because she is helpless she does not get Evasion either.

Also- GET TO DA TOWAH

Well, if I'm reading the rules right, you still get a save. You're just helpless, so an effective dex of 0. Pathfinder rules are weird.

Oh, I believe you, it's just weird. Which is why I'm considering it "luck".

What's the DC for the saving throw? SHe's going to get a 11 total, which doesn't sound quite enough to me...

Nope, she takes full damage.

Is there enough time for Istiel to become conscious and enter the tower while Oios is running around playing the Benny Hill intro theme?

Yes, everyone is in the tower

Thank you Imix and Nat for saving Istiel- she wouldn't have made it without your sweet, sweet healing. She will return the favor by punching your enemies into a fine red mist, and then punching the mist until it diffuses away due to Brownian motion or is blown away by a stiff breeze. Whichever comes first.

Nat, that Fast Healing spell is GREAT. Ultimate out-of-combat healing.

No problems, just keep standing in front of Nat and all will be well :-)

Fast Healing is great, except when you need a big glob of hit points RIGHT NOW - as my summoned mook demonstrated :-(

So, what are you all doing? Healing? Sleeping? Exploring? Reading the runes? Something else?

Prepare for dungeon exploring?

Sounds right.
Maybe a ceremony for the fallen, first?

Oh man my last gameplay post has a shameful number of typos... Shame! That'll teach me to proofread.

As for what we're doing, Istiel is busy brooding.

I say we heal up (if there are still spell points left) and go dungeoning! The night is young.

Nat is practically made of spell points - she is halfway through her total.

Alllll right! Ready to bash heads again.

I'm assuming we messed around long enough reading the inscriptions on the tower that Imix's buffs are gone? The +3 ac boost was 9 minutes (definitely gone), the +4 str and dex had 50 minutes left when we starting fighting.

AC buff is gone, we'll revisit str/dex if/when it becomes necessary to use them.

What light sources do you have?

Istiel has 8 torches and is unhindered in combat by holding one, so she'll provide light and take lead.

Some of this depends on what the writings on the wall say if Imix can translate.

I don't think any of us can read Darohm? I think Drazen is teaching himself the language out of his book, but I don't think he's told anyone/put the point into linguistics yet? Could be wrong but that's what I remember.

Sorry, I posted thinking that you all were not focusing on the writings right now. Nothing has happened my most recent gameplay post could happen after the tower is examined, if you want to work at the runes.

If you want to get a general gist, you can do that by spending a couple of hours in the room, looking at the pictographs. If you want a more complete grasp, we'll need a linguistics check. The Darohm book will give a +4 circumstance bonus to linguistics checks, as Fulton has been working on translating it. But, I don't know that it is with you.

I'm fine with whichever if we really want to do the runes, but it seems we had three affirmatives for dungeoning already.

Ah ok, I thought it was Terran or something. Nevermind.

Yep, sorry, it isn't Terran. It is Darohm.

I'll be traveling throughout the weekend, going to see the eclipse in totality. Fortunately, I have a friend living within a few miles of one of the longest-lasting points.

Should still be able to post from my phone.

You sphere caster types (anyone but Istiel) should make an incantation that involves a total solar eclipse... it would be rad.

I'm headed north to be in totality myself. Longest-lasting point, eh? Southern Illinois? I'll be in Carbondale on Monday. If you'll be in the area, we'll be at a party I'm sure you'd be welcome at.

We'll be flying into STL tomorrow and seeing friends/family this weekend before heading to SoIl, so updating may or may not happen this weekend, depending on time.

Ha, yes! I'll be in Carterville, which is a few miles east of Carbondale. I actually grew up in the area north of there, in the boonies (trailer, shotguns, redneck family, etc), by Rend Lake.

The friend I'm staying with has a party planned as well, and while I would love to meet up, it may not be feasible. The mobility in the area is going to be truly terrible. I've been to Carbondale/Marion many times and I'm skeptical that the infrastructure can even handle this glut of people. Thankfully I know a lot of back roads, but I have the feeling it's still going to be motorized disaster.

I'll try to keep in touch to see if I can at least swing by somehow and say hello.

Oios, can you warp to the lever? Otherwise Drazen and Istiel will have to hulk out and try to pull the portcullis up/break the locking mechanism.

Though, if we make enough noise whomever lives here should investigate.

Yup Oios can do that. As long as he can see it, he can get to it.

Ha, yes! I'll be in Carterville, which is a few miles east of Carbondale. I actually grew up in the area north of there, in the boonies (trailer, shotguns, redneck family, etc), by Rend Lake.

The friend I'm staying with has a party planned as well, and while I would love to meet up, it may not be feasible. The mobility in the area is going to be truly terrible. I've been to Carbondale/Marion many times and I'm skeptical that the infrastructure can even handle this glut of people. Thankfully I know a lot of back roads, but I have the feeling it's still going to be motorized disaster.

I'll try to keep in touch to see if I can at least swing by somehow and say hello.

I went to undergrad at SIUC. I've been out to Rend Lake a few times, and know Carterville. My friends that we're going to the party on Monday live off a lake (can't remember the name) by Little Grassy. I spent a lot of time at Giant City, Little Grand Canyon, the spillway, etc. Lovely country in Southern Illinois.

Yeah, the infrastructure there can't handle an expected 100k+ people coming in. It is going to be madness. We're planning on setting out at like 5 am, getting breakfast in Carbondale, and then heading to my friends to hunker down for the event.

Ha no way! Small world. I didn't stay in the area after high school, went north to Peoria for college and stayed there.

It really is beautiful there, especially Shawnee national Forest. I should come back for camping more often.

Hmmm Devil's Kitchen lake? Or Crab Orchard lake?

Apologies for delay in posting - am doing my first tabletop game in like forever this evening so gearing up for that.

Will post later.

Just curious, what are you running Nat?

Starfinder. Playtest. Soooo. Excited.

Oh sweeeeeeet! Will probably ask you how it goes.

Hurricane prep today at work. I hope to get a post in tonight.

Not sure how my internet is going to do once Harvey makes landfall. I hope to be able to post throughout the weekend, since we're not going anywhere!

Istiel: after action report can be found here. Short version: was AWESOME.

Hope you all enjoyed the eclipse, btw. Here in the UK, of course, we're used to the sun disappearing from the sky. We call it "summer".

Stay safe, GMBP!

Stay safe BP, you're our national treasure!

Also, excellent work on Rock's (unfortunately brief) story... the truth becomes clear!

So something (a dwarf?) is living in this tower, and has the ability to enslave minds. The nargun, ogres, and hopefully not us. Damballah help us all if Drazen gets mind controlled...

Thanks for the write-up, Nat! Sounds like a lot of fun, I'm especially interested in the starships and space battles. Will have to do some more research later so I can be prepared when games pop up on these boards.

So I'm a bit confused as out of the loop. Where did we find the tower?

Also, excellent work on Rock's (unfortunately brief) story... the truth becomes clear!

You all dodged a bullet with that crit.

So I'm a bit confused as out of the loop. Where did we find the tower?

The tower, which appears to be dwarf-made, is on a hillock in the middle of a man-made (dwarf-made? Nargun-made?) lake, created by the crude damming of the Cheya river with large boulders and debris by the cliffside that marks the end of the Baunti Valley, and a thousand-foot drop in elevation (or so the legends say).

Here in the UK, of course, we're used to the sun disappearing from the sky. We call it "summer".

Har! Here, the summer consists of cloudless blue skies and 100 f (38 c) degree days, day after day, from mid-June until October. Unless there's a hurricane.

Winters are lovely, though.

I understand it has touched down? How are you going?

Things are fine here. It ended up making landfall a little further north than originally thought. We're windy, cloudy. We saw a little rain.

Houston and some other areas are expected to get as much rainfall in this storm as they see in an entire year in more normal times.

The discussion of mines in the gameplay thread and my admission that I don't 'get' dwarves led me to musing over another question I've been wrestling with, and I think I need your help with a little worldbuilding here.

Full disclosure: this entire portion of the adventure was not planned.

That was the plan, until Drazan made an excellent connection that was perfect, and that somehow I hadn't considered, and I pivoted. So, I've been designing this on the fly as we go.

I've got most of it figured out, and I think the story is going to be much better for the pivot, but I'm running into one issue I can't wrap my head around.

Here's what I need: does anyone know of a natural phenomenon that happens rarely (preferably once a month, but can't be less rare than that), and is underground? Bonus points if it happens on a timetable in a predictable manner.

I've got one idea, but I'm not sold on it yet.

Oh, and let me know if you're freeing the Frozen surveyors and bringing them with, or leaving them (or leaving them and telling them you'll be back). I wanted to get us moving on, but this is important.

Great story - and fantastic pivot! Ad-libbing is where a campaign really comes alive, imho.

As for phenomena, hm... geyser eruption? That said, this is a fantasy world - make something up and tell us it's a natural phenomenon :-)

Re: Frozen, I've edited my post accordingly.

Old Faithful comes to mind just as Nat said.

Moving this to the discussion thread:

Agree entirely with Oios on the re-animation of Apchux's corpse: that was animation via magic, rather than desecration with negative energy. Ergo, not necromancy.

That said, it's a fine distinction to make, and it's probably just as well Nat wasn't on scene when you did it :)

Copper mining:

Copper, the 8th most abundant metal in the Earth's crust, can and does occur in its pure form, making it easily accessible to curious humans that like shiny objects. Since ancient times peoples have used open-pit mines to gather it, but some had it easier;
in Cyprus you used to be able to literaly pick up chunks of it off the ground. The Baunti doesn't seem like that kind of place, but with all the waterways it's very easy to imagine erosion exposing native copper veins to scrape out.

In addition, minerals containing copper are very common and many do not require advanced techniques to extract, but my instinct tells me the Takayah people are still in the pre-metallurgy stage of copper gathering/refinement. This kind of refinement only became needed when people started running out of native copper, or they only had the mineral forms and wanted that cool metal their neighbors had but couldn't be bothered to kill them for it.

By the way, if you want to see a copper weapon this is a recreation of the "iceman mummy" Otzi's axe. Not exactly a +5 flaming bane vorpal axe of the dwarfish lords, but if you were a hunter-gatherer with a flint knife Otzi would look mighty intimidating wielding that.

Btw BP if you ever have questions about underground crap, mining, metallurgy, I should be able to cook up an answer. I've dabbled in blacksmithing, have a bit of a dwarf obession, and took some Materials Chemistry classes that gave me a passing understanding of metallurgy. Of coure, this is also a (your) fantasy world, so you only have to care about nerd crap if you want to :)

Undead:

Agree with all the above comments. Imix's animation of Apchux was really freaking cool by the way, and one of my favorite moments from this game.

Rock:

Sneaky! I like it... too bad his face got turned into a fine mist so we couldn't suffer this inevitable betrayal. Guess that old man was right after all!

I kind of like how this is going. I was secretly hoping this tower xomplex was much, much bigger than it seemed.

Mountain Men captives:

It's up to Drazen if they're coming with us now or later, or at all. He's kind of been designated as Keeper of the Frozen an Istiel doesn't really care one way or the other. They're not a threat right now and could potentially be useful. Best case scenario they get used as meatshields (like Rock!), worst case scenario we kill them all ourselves.

Underground Phenomenon:

A geyser is the lowest hanging fruit here, and was also my first thought. I've never heard of an underground one, but why the hell not? It's just driven by water pressure.

My only problem is that geyers are typically manifestatios of geothermal activity, and there weren't really any signs of it around. It would be very, very hot underground and incredibly dangerous to mine in that kind of area. I don't know how far these areas extend though, it could be highly localized if there's just a small break in the earth's crust which allowed the mantel through?

Here's some other ideas that fit your criteria:

Biological cycle:

Cicadas are well-known for their emergence cycles, and I foundly remember the incredible swarm of dumb bugs in our own local 13-year cycle from a few years ago. Your phenomenon could be the monthly emergence of some kind of deep earth insect, crayfish molting, some kind of fish spawning, giant bioluminescent fungus releasing spores, etc.

Crystal/stalactite formation:

Crystals can actually be "grown" by slowly evaporating water-soluble minerals. This is how stalactites are formed- water drips from the ceiling and calcium carbonate (CaCO3) that was dissolved in the water is slowly deposited onto a surface, forming spikes. It's entirely feasible that some other mineral that crystalizes much quicker could go through a month-long cycle of being deposited from some water flow or dripping from the ceiling, become too heavy, break off, and the process starts over again.

Oooh that would actually be really cool if it's like a spike of hardened mineral that falls from the ceiling and kills some kind of sacrifice!

Underground natural nuclear reactors

Okay now i'm getting crazy here but under the right conditions uranium isotopes in ores can begin a self-sustaining nuclear reaction, generating large amounts of heat and radiation. There has only ever been ONE recorded instance of this actually occuring in nature, but it did occur. This could be the localized heat source for your geyser, and potentially make all our hair and teeth fall out.