Given the small number of Kuru, I think it's fair to assume that there aren't that many bugbears or the conflict would have been over fairly quick. Maybe even just the one. It/they may still make good allies but I think we'll likely have the upper hand in such negotiations.
I'd think so. They couldn't root the kuru out (perhaps they don't have boatbuilders or a boatbuilding/seafaring tradition?). They should at least take us seriously as a military power.
Good points about the natural defensiveness of the island.
Somehow, I missed some of the posts in the gameplay thread until now. This island is pretty sweet. Do we want to move hear or stake our claim to it somehow? That is a LOT of free/cheap buildings!
Given that our numbers have swelled, I think the large canoe is our best bet. With food and a proper night's rest hopefully the women can help out.
So ... you guys are comfortable eating Torag's nuts?
Ten to paddle the big canoe, 7 with a penalty, and I said half the full crew at a minimum, so it's full capacity would be 16, plus carrying space for another 8. It's big. It's also big enough that were it rigged with a sail, it would still need 2 to skeleton crew it, 4 to do the job properly.
This excites me for some reason. No not Torag's nuts, the big canoe. I think Cueta's seafaring fetish is rubbing off on me. When we get back Cueta should slap a sail on the mega canoe and we'll turn it into our adventuring flagship.
If we moved everyone here, we'd have an Oregon Trail situation, and we would suffer some casualties before everyone made it. Not to mention our food would be dangerously low by the time we arrived- Also the diplomacy rolls to get everyone to move would be the last hurdle. We could move part of Newspring to dwarf island, but Nerk already said two adventuring fronts is all he wants to deal with.
Moving all of us would likely represent some problems. I'm honestly not super sure what we should do. Ideally we could set up 20-30 or so people here as a secondary settlement but that presents a host of other problems.
Oh ... I meant to add that Vallen suspects it will be at least a few days of rest and food before the four rescued women are recovered enough to contribute meaningfully.
Consider them as having had the exhausted condition, relieved to fatigued by Vallen's channel, but they will remain fatigued for a few days, and will become exhausted again if put to any serious physical labor, such as paddling all day.
Well with only 7 of us, could they maybe act as one person between the four of them, switching off throughout the day to conserve their strength?
I think we need to do some serious cost-benefit analysis of what a move brings us.
Nerk, if we did move, could any of our projects be broken down into component parts (i.e. the palisade into goods), for the move?
Quick list of what the island provides us, if I understood everything correctly:
6 gardens: 4 labor each to get operational, 1 person to tend each. @Nerk How much will each garden produce in terms of food units once operational?
Observation Dome: functional
Guard post: functional
Bell tower: functional
4 docks: each with broken condition. Half construction cost to bring back to operational.
4 storage: each with broken condition. Half construction cost to bring back to operational.
2 forges: 1 labor & 1 goods to get operational.
8 bunks: 1 labor & 1 goods to get operational.
2 kitchen: 1 labor & 1 goods to get operational.
6 storage: 1 labor & 1 goods to get operational.
3 offices: 1 labor & 1 goods to get operational.
100 goods: We could get the forges, bunks, kitchens, 6 storage units in the dwarf fortress and offices functional for 21 goods and 21 labor, giving us another 79 goods for the docks and storage and whatever other projects are needed. 45 labor to get the rooms above and the gardens operational.
We could move the bulk of the people overland and at half movement, foraging on the way. Once we get out of Newspring's hex, our food intake would go up substantially.
On the other hand, getting people off the island to forage until everything is set up may present a problem...
This excites me for some reason. No not Torag's nuts, the big canoe. I think Cueta's seafaring fetish is rubbing off on me. When we get back Cueta should slap a sail on the mega canoe and we'll turn it into our adventuring flagship.
YYEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!! We'll make saltbeard out of you yet, Silverclasp!
Cueta: The gardens will produce food the same way farmland would. The roll would be made daily for GP, and the result would be expressed as food. A days rations=5sp. Taking 10 on the check will produce 18 sp daily, or 18 food/5 days. Unlike foraging, these resources don't diminish daily, but for 3 months of the year, they will not be able to produce food. Fortunately (or not) that time is at least 7 and a half months off, in game. Also, if the gardens are upgraded to greenhouses, they will produce all year long.
I think the building projects that have been begun are pretty untransportable. The labor investment to pick up a and move across country will be less than it will take to just start anew. Teams, obviously, can be moved, but won't be generating income while they're on the road.
Ah ... Vallen raised a good point, about only two adventuring fronts. If you guys want to divide the colony between Newspring and the island, I'm going to make the radical assumption that PCs (or 2PCs) would join the overland trek. Once the move is accomplished, the island is secure enough as a stronghold that a team of soldiers and a manager of some sort can hold it against random encounters without the presence of PCs being required beyond a fortnightly look-in. Newspring is far more vulnerable.
Also, should a clear corridor of hexes between the two be explored and patrolled, travel between the two will be subject to far fewer random encounters, such that NPCs could be dispatched from one to the other relatively safely.
I think at best we can send a few people here to work the gardens. Later if we get more people we can turn the island into a second settlement.
Oh man! Demon-worshiping dwarves and possibly demon-worshiping elves! Sounds like Vallen and Kal'Tos have their work cut out for them...
There may be much purging going on in the future.
Cueta has discarded her hide shirt and is going back to her lamellar. Stats updated.
So we are taking the big canoe back? Also I think on the way back to Newspring we should light a big fire at night and see if anyone shows up. maybe we can deal with the five strays that are out there. Before we can send anyone out to the fortress we need to fix the gates climbing up the crapper is silly. Newspring is the best place to be at the moment. closer to resources we need, and more sheltered from the weather. Safe enough too now that we don't have to worry about hordes of shark toothed Kuru attacking.
So, my thoughts are that since everyone wants to stay at least partly at Newspring and keep the island a secret, we need to, in no particular order of importance:
1) Get to work exploring the area between Newspring and Dwarf Island. This will have the added benefit of giving foragers more hexes to work out of, allowing Newspring's to regenerate. We can also forage while exploring.
2) Build a trail between the two sites
3) Patrol said trail
4) Make contact with the bugbears and figure out their intentions toward us
5) Make contact with any other intelligent residents nearby and threat assess them
Also, we need to / I'd like to:
6) Start guarding the boats. They are currently our most valuable assets as a community (at least until the forge and farms are built) and we need a way to keep tabs on them.
7) Figure out the food situation. Does anyone have a handle on the math on this? How long will our food last? What can we reasonably expect the two farms to do once they are up and running?
8) Figure out what happened to the exploration party that went out and died in our absence.
9) Hold a moot to tell Newspring about Dwarf Island.
Is there any priority that I am missing? Anything that you think should be included, or is not a priority? What is, in your mind, the top two or three priorities? I figure once we nail down what we as a group think should be done, then we can formulate a plan(s).
Food, most of the PCs have decent survival, we should spend a few days exploring at half speed and foraging to get some more hexes available for foraging by NPCs.
In our present situation, our food will likely run out in about 10 days depending on rolls. Securing a new hex will help with this but isn't likely to buy us more than 2-3 days at best.
I've been thinking that Hassan is going to present the undoubtedly highly unpopular idea of putting people on half rations. How would you run something like this Nerk?
Ben, actually as long as we only have a small presence on the island, the limited entry of the privy is actually a huge boon to us. I still highly suggest we send 25 or so settlers out to this island asap. With the gardens up and running, such a colony would be self sufficient, possibly even running a small surplus of food. This would massively reduce the strain on Newspring and work can be made reclaiming more of the other perks the island offers at the same time.
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On one last note, I wanted to ask about the yield on farms, gardens, ect.
I think the way you have it set up is great but I'm not certain trail rations are a good point of reference for the food to cost ratio. The price of rations are inflated because they are mostly made of more expensive items designed specifically to keep for long periods. For the most part things like grain and fruit are somewhat more cost effective. I'm hoping I might be able to convince you that food for one person/day would be better priced at 2-3sp. We're not looking for any real luxury beyond staying alive at this point. Just my 2cp :)
Top priorities-
1)Explore hexes around Newspring to aid foragers.
(This will help us determine what happened to the other scouting party and make contact with other intelligent residents as well)
One more solider or guard team wouldn't hurt for the beach (we have leftover weapons), but I'd rather have them foraging.
2)Build farms- Nerk worked out that Farms will produce 20 food a day?
Every day our foragers gather about half of the food needed. At this rate we have approximately 10 days of food left.
We must start putting as much of our resources into building as many farms as possible.
I would say that if the farm produces gp+10 (as I think it does) daily, that we can convert 1 gp to 2 food days. A "good" meal and trail rations both clock in at 5sp, and the farm will produce food that either is fresh and good, or must be preserved. Before anyone starts throwing average crop yields at me, remember, all of this is produced "free," in terms of the game, without anyone actually doing anything. Presumably the work will be getting done by farmers who are also working on other projects, like building a house or another farm.
Food, most of the PCs have decent survival, we should spend a few days exploring at half speed and foraging to get some more hexes available for foraging by NPCs.
Kal'Tos, for once our views align 100%, totally and completely. I would like to add that I would like to explore towards the island from Newspring.
With average rolls I can feed 4 people foraging a day. I'd assume Kal'Tos and Gair can do about the same. Us three bringing in 12 food/day isn't too shabby.
One more solider or guard team wouldn't hurt for the beach (we have leftover weapons), but I'd rather have them foraging.
Agreed - once we get the food situation stabilized, I think we should look at another guard team.
Vallen, how do you see Vallen and Istiel fitting into things when we get back? What do you see them doing?
I'm not sure what Sorala should be doing at this point. Continue earning gp to turn into labor / influence towards a project? Forage for food? What do you all think?
Without survival, Sorala should probably continue earning some cash. Having a small amount of labor/influence on hand is going to be very useful given the goods we have. We'll need them for things like the new guard team.
I'd think the new team can just be folded into the guards we have now though. The beach will undoubtedly become part of the patrol route once the boats get back and with another team of guards we should have enough to station one or two people at the beach full time. It's not like we need a full team watching over them at all times, just an eye on them. In time we can hopefully build a small stake barrier partway down the beach and keep the boats inside as a little extra protection.
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Gair, you make a good point. If you like, you're welcome to devise a system. It should accurately represent farming and includes spoilage, the damage done by insects and the challenges of farming on newly broken ground with no viable fertilizer and few tools, and the time elapsed between sowing and reaping. Weather should be factored in, and the varying intensity of necessary labor. We could make a whole game of it, call it Farmers and Fertilizer, using OGL rules for people who want to accurately reflect the action and adventure of pre-industrial agricultural life....
Seems I woke up on the sarcastic side of bed this morning.
The system I set up is a ballpark, designed for ease of use and balanced to the needs of the campaign, rather than to be strictly realistic. I have no doubt that there are thousands of reasons why it should be more, and thousands of reasons why it should be less. I could open the door to that conversation, but I frankly, I don't want to spend that much time researching it. As is, taking 10 a farm will feed 4 people a day, a garden slightly less. There is no labor involved in that. It just magically happens, while people are busy building more farms, or palisades, or whatever. Pretty nifty, if you ask me.
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Half rations. Interesting, and something I should have thought of. I'll call it half starvation, with con checks starting after 6 days, the DC increasing by 1 every 2 days, and the damage reduced from d6 to d4-1.
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Once a plan is approved, I'm ready to proceed.
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--------------On one last note, I wanted to ask about the yield on farms, gardens, ect.
I think the way you have it set up is great but I'm not certain trail rations are a good point of reference for the food to cost ratio. The price of rations are inflated because they are mostly made of more expensive items designed specifically to keep for long periods. For the most part things like grain and fruit are somewhat more cost effective. I'm hoping I might be able to convince you that food for one person/day would be better priced at 2-3sp. We're not looking for any real luxury beyond staying alive at this point. Just my 2cp :)
I believe the 5sp a food ruling is so that we don't have to worry about food spoilage. As in, all the food produced can be preserved. If we wanted to get more complicated, we could work out a system such as us having two different types of food- perishable food and preserved food, and farms can have two "modes", producing perishable food (common meal 3sp) or preserved food (good meal/trail mix 5sp).
The perishable food would be consumed immediately while the preserved food could be placed into storage for the winter/taken on adventures. Nerk mentioned gardens will not produce food during the winter- I assume farms are the same.
Vallen... the GP+10 does not mean +10 gp. It means +10 on a roll for gp, which is actually sp, so 1d20+10 sp daily. So taking 10, a farm will produce 4 food/day.
Having just ranted about how it's a ballpark thing, etc, I'm saying farms and gardens will produce food in winter. Someone dug a root cellar or discovered a cache of mason jars.
One more solider or guard team wouldn't hurt for the beach (we have leftover weapons), but I'd rather have them foraging.
Agreed - once we get the food situation stabilized, I think we should look at another guard team.
Vallen, how do you see Vallen and Istiel fitting into things when we get back? What do you see them doing?
Istiel is going to immediately go out with the explorers to search for the missing elves. I still don't know if I'm going to make her a fighter or ranger, I'm mulling it over and I hope inspiration will strike. Vallen is going to stick around town and help with construction/making labor/crafting things. He'll go out adventuring if you need someone who can speak Goblin.
Vallen... the GP+10 does not mean +10 gp. It means +10 on a roll for gp, which is actually sp, so 1d20+10 sp daily. So taking 10, a farm will produce 4 food/day.
I got waaaay too excited about food.
Duly noted :) To be fair I just figured it was worth a shot given my slightly biased position on the matter. I blame the impending hunger pains :P
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Sounds good on the half rations, how quickly would people recover from say a week on half rations if they went back to full? I'm thinking we can maybe rotate our portions somehow to eek out a little extra time.
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Plan proposed, a little feedback and we should be good to go.
I am not really sure about doing anything with the fortress island at this time. We have limited resources. The island is far enough away that anyone out there is pretty much on their own. I am of the opinion we should get things settled and functioning in Newspring before we take on any other projects. The gardens and orchards on the island are too far away to be useful. and setting up a trail to move back and forth is a lot of work that takes resources we don't have especially if we have to patrol it. The people on patrol can't be foraging for food or working on a building project.
Vallen... the GP+10 does not mean +10 gp. It means +10 on a roll for gp, which is actually sp, so 1d20+10 sp daily. So taking 10, a farm will produce 4 food/day.I got waaaay too excited about food.
Yeah, farms are going to be important but given the creation time what we really need right now are shorter term solutions. I think half rations will give us a little wiggle room but it's still going to be rough.
I am not really sure about doing anything with the fortress island at this time. We have limited resources. The island is far enough away that anyone out there is pretty much on their own. I am of the opinion we should get things settled and functioning in Newspring before we take on any other projects. The gardens and orchards on the island are too far away to be useful. and setting up a trail to move back and forth is a lot of work that takes resources we don't have especially if we have to patrol it. The people on patrol can't be foraging for food or working on a building project.
Our main problem at the moment is that things in Newspring aren't going to settle out any time soon. Without some radical changes people are likely to starve to death before it ever become a properly functioning settlement.
The distance of the orchards is largely irrelevant in this case. If we can get a group set up there, they will simply be able to feed themselves, making life in Newspring a lot easier.
Breaking a trail is reasonably important, but with our fleet of boats it's less of a huge deal. We don't need to be sending people back and forth all that often.
Nerk has already said that with a team of soldier/guards to look after them, a group would be reasonably safe on the island given it's remote nature. Those gardens would provide more than 20 food a day with a far smaller investment of resources than any farms we might build will. I honestly don't see much of a downside.
Half rations is a very good idea, but it sure won't be a popular one! We'll have a moot when we return, to tell everyone of our adventures and then tell them we're going to half starve ourselves now.
Not that Vallen will mind, he'll be casting Abstemiousness for himself every day on returning, probably. A handful of Torag Farms Mixed Nuts a day keeps the starvation at bay!
By the way Gair- what are you planning on retraining Hassan to? If you are going to retrain warrior to a PC class.
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So you want to put some people on half rations and others on full? That should work out well....
But to actually answer the question: You know how starvation you make a con check that gets a cumulative +1 per day of not eating? I'll say each day of eating gives a cumulative -1 to that roll, until it's back to 0.
So, the women you rescued, assuming they did not accept any of the food that was offered them, have been starving for approximately 13 days. So the checks started 10 days ago, so it's probably (mathematically) unrealistic that they all survived, but they did, so the dice were on their side. Whatever. They are currently at a +10 on that check's DC. Feed them and tomorrow they'll be at +9. They won't have to make the check, mind, but if they start starving again, they'll have a head start. 10 days of eating properly and they'll be fully restored, nutritionally.
Am I making sense?
I kind of hoping I can retrain him to cavalier, it seems fairly fitting to me. As I said before, hopefully once we get exploring, we can find some potential mounts.
If only he had more charisma I might try to make him a bard. Dawnflower Dervish or something awesome like that.
So you want to put some people on half rations and others on full? That should work out well....
But to actually answer the question: You know how starvation you make a con check that gets a cumulative +1 per day of not eating? I'll say each day of eating gives a cumulative -1 to that roll, until it's back to 0.
So, the women you rescued, assuming they did not accept any of the food that was offered them, have been starving for approximately 13 days. So the checks started 10 days ago, so it's probably (mathematically) unrealistic that they all survived, but they did, so the dice were on their side. Whatever. They are currently at a +10 on that check's DC. Feed them and tomorrow they'll be at +9. They won't have to make the check, mind, but if they start starving again, they'll have a head start. 10 days of eating properly and they'll be fully restored, nutritionally.
Am I making sense?
Yep, this is what I was thinking as well.
And not really, I was more thinking we could achieve the same effect cutting to half rations for a while and then going back for a bit once it starts to majorly affect our productivity, and so on and so forth.
Though there are some cases to be made for keeping the guards better fed than anyone else. Gair even has diplomacy now so they might not hang us...immediately :P
Makes sense to me. They can recover from starving just in time to start starving again yay.
Also, I just found the Dream Feast spell, but I don't like it. Seems kind of cheaty for a 1st level spell. It's more powerful than Abstemiousness because it doesn't require anything- just sleeping. Kind of redundant if you ask me.
Vallen do you mind of Septimus does a few days of "OJT" with you. Kal'Tos will be busy foraging and exploring once we get back. Septimus needs 5 days of training with a cleric to change his class.
Question - if the ladies were being kept around for breeding, they were probably getting fed too, right? Assuming that a kuru pregnancy results in the same gestation period that a human pregnancy does, the kuru have an interest in keeping their breeding stock alive for that period of time at least. Now, maybe their captives don't want to eat their companions, so they decline to eat, which seems a perfectly reasonable choice to make in such a situation.
You know what? Never mind. Anxiously awaiting DM Nerk's incredibly grim post-apocalyptic fantasy novel, I am...
OJT? I don't see why not- Vallen can spare some time teaching Septimus how to properly communicate with the gods when he's not working on the forge.
I kind of hoping I can retrain him to cavalier, it seems fairly fitting to me. As I said before, hopefully once we get exploring, we can find some potential mounts.
Ha! Hassan is going to have to train with Edmund, isn't he? That will be fun. :p
I'm seriously torn on what to do with Istiel. I should go with my gut and make her a fighter instead of ranger- I just I hope I don't regret it later.
Also don't forget about the other retraining rules-
Retraining costs gp equal to 10 × your level × the number of days required to retrain.
Training requires spending time with a character who has at least 1 more level in the class you're retraining than your current level in that class. If no trainer is available (such as if you are at the highest level for that class), you still have the option to retrain without a trainer by spending double the time.
I don't even know if there's a 2nd level fighter in Newspring.
I don't know if Nerk is going to make changes to these rules or not. At this rate we're going to overload his brain today!
I, like Ben, have reservations about splitting the Newspringers up into an island group as well. But I don't see that we have much choice at this point. As Gair points out, that 18 food/day from getting the gardens operational would be huge. We should not send more than 18 people there to work the gardens and guard the island. And, they'll need food for the time it takes to get the gardens up and running as well.
So, as a basic plan:
1. Sail back to Newspring (3 days travel, or do we want to roll and see if we can cut the time?)
2. Hold moot. Upset many apple carts and incur the wrath of everyone. Ask for 18 volunteers to go to the island.
3. Gair, Kal'Tos, Istiel and Cueta start to forage/explore. Ben, would you like to come on this expedition as well? You couldn't forage due to speed concerns, but your eyes would be very useful, as would your stealth. We should be able to bring in another 10-20 food a day doing this as well. Are you all ok with foraging/exploring towards the island at first? Vallen's suggestion to work around Newspring is a good idea as well - we could do a circuit of the hexes around NS.
4. Things continue as they are at NS? Should construction be halted on the forge and bunks and those people put to work foraging or building more farms? Sorala works her alchemy stand. Vallen helps with building/crafiting. Septimus gets OJT from Vallen. Hassan guards. Garross does ? Foragers move out to nearby hexes when one become available.
Thoughts/comments/criticisms?
Cueta:
1) We're already going to be making a DC 10 fortitude save every day for rowing the mega canoe with 7 people, I don't know if speeding up would influence that? Otherwise, sailor check away. but maybe not today, it's choppy out.
2) I hope they fare better than the last volunteers.
3) We must explore the hexes around Newspring first to aid the forager rolls, starting with the vanished exploration party hex.
4) The constructions cannot be halted, once all of the capital has been spent on them they are "constructing" until the days required have been achieved. All of the gp and capital Vallen will be producing will be going to farms from now on.
Cueta:
1) We're already going to be making a DC 10 fortitude save every day for rowing the mega canoe with 7 people, I don't know if speeding up would influence that? Otherwise, sailor check away. but maybe not today, it's choppy out.
2) I hope they fare better than the last volunteers.
3) We must explore the hexes around Newspring first to aid the forager rolls, starting with the vanished exploration party hex.
4) The constructions cannot be halted, once all of the capital has been spent on them they are "constructing" until the days required have been achieved. All of the gp and capital Vallen will be producing will be going to farms from now on.
Thanks, Vallen! It has been awhile since I've familiarized myself with the DT rules.
1) Yeah, if figure that is up to DM Nerk to rule on, but thought I'd bring it up.
2) Agreed! We may not even get many volunteers with the fate of the last ones so fresh on everyone's minds!
3) Sounds good to me.
4) Would you all like Sorala's rolls to go towards the farms as well, or should she be banking this for "as needed" down the line?
1) Yeah, looks like it might take 4 days to get back given our understaffed nature. Though maybe the ladies will regain a little strength on the way and be able to help out a little?
2) I think the draw of a fortified island might be enough to coax out some volunteers. Technically, the gardens should get us a little better than 20 food a day, partial portions would carry over to the next result not simply be lost in rounding, no?
3) Once we finish with the hex where we lost the explorers, we can work on making our way to the Island, having two adjacent hexes explored will keep the foragers going for a while.
4) Since the rolls for the farms really just include everyone rolling to earn enough capital to start construction, it's the same if you just keep doing as you are and then donate some capital to the next far being built anyway.
3) Once we finish with the hex where we lost the explorers, we can work on making our way to the Island, having two adjacent hexes explored will keep the foragers going for a while.
4) Since the rolls for the farms really just include everyone rolling to earn enough capital to start construction, it's the same if you just keep doing as you are and then donate some capital to the next far being built anyway.
Awesome. I like the compromise with the nearby hexes, finding (maybe) what happened to the npc explorers, and working our way towards Dwarf Island.
And thanks for the info on the DT rolls. Sorala will keep banking gp until we get closer to starting another project/team. Then she'll pitch into that.
I need to reread the DT rules again.
Since we still have a lot of javelins left, Cueta is going to take another. Resources sheet has been updated.
A word on pacing:
I'm going to be travelling for the rest of June and July. I will have net access most of the time so I should be able to post fairly regularly, but it'll be less consistent than now.
Just to let you know that if a day or two passes without any word from me, it's not because I'm losing interest. I hope you guys don't lose interest either.
No worries Nerk, enjoy your traveling!
Just curious, are you going to tweak any of the retraining rules for our 2PCs or will they stand as they are?
No worries Nerk, I don't foresee any issues with people losing interest in this campaign.
Neither do I, this campaign has too much promise for that. In truth, I'm kind of glad. I too am likely to have less free time during July.