The Hollow Man (Inactive)

Game Master trux

Now as for a trading post and stables on the King's Road, I was thinking earlier that there might be one already in the published material and if there wasn't I might add one. You see I don't know the area around Endhome by heart like I do the areas around Fairhill, Bard's Gate, and Rappan Athuk. I've been running games in those areas for a couple of years now but this Lost City module is something I've never run. In the cannon setting Endhome is 800 miles away from Bard's Gate. I was looking through the back-catalogue of Lost Lands adventures for modules I could cram into the region to pad it out with more detail and more adventure sites. This was one of the ones I selected as a standout candidate, with input from the staff.

I advertised the game for August because I have to get really familiar with the module, and then cram it into my map making any necessary changes to the geography. Migrating it proved pretty easy, I only had to add the Ghaelon river, everything else fit like a glove. But I still don't want to rush into running it without enough prep and have the experience suffer as a result.

I know you expressed an eagerness to begin early, Chillblame, and that is why I decided to offer this pre-adventure, which I have run before. It was an all-time favorite for both groups I have run it for at home and I'm very excited to run it for you guys, but the cost of starting this early is that you will have to confine yourself to the region I am comfortable with. No matter how much sense it makes for you to bypass the adventure while guarding a merchant caravan, that still leaves us with a net result of no adventure.

That's not to say I'm not up to the challenge of devising a different adventure suitable for the situation you would like to start with, guards on a caravan. If it's deeply important to you and the other players are on board, I will come up with something. I am that excited about you guys as players. But this adventure I had planned is a goodie (fingers crossed it translates well to PbP.)

Oh, ok. No objections.

Missed this. lol ignore my last two posts I guess. We are back in business!

I'm checking all my PDF's still can't find a decent barbarian tribe to stick in the region... Weird.

It's the unknown tribe. Cursed with invisibility and silence they wander from place to place.

Lot's of references to barbarians in the adventures, especially tombs of ancient barbarian heroes seem to crop up a lot. A couple of barbarian gods, Bowbe and Gromm. A barbarian heavy metal band that plays the pub circuit in Bard's Gate. A barbar shop and tattoo parlor that caters to barbarians. A special unit of currency, the horn, used only for trade with Barbarians in the tent-city outside Bard's Gate. But no location indicated where they live, at least not within 800 miles. I think I'm overlooking something obvious. Back to the books.

Brainstorm three barbarian chiefs?
Hell why not

RAWK

I'll post stuff that might be helpful. Couple gods:

Gromm

Bowbe

Edit: If you need a bad guy maybe look at Thursis.

And if you could have one tribe just be into Freya that would help for Morrigan's story I think.

RAWK

I'll post stuff that might be helpful. Couple gods:

Gromm

Bowbe

Edit: If you need a bad guy maybe look at Thursis.

And if you could have one tribe just be into Freya that would help for Morrigan's story I think.

Re: Thursis I kind of like the idea of a bunch of half-naked ginger barbarians running aorund with greataxes baying for blood. Maybe they have chariots, but that's pretty silly.

Otherwise first candidate has a limited knowledge of most of the regional gods, and makes blood sacrifices of most enemies on the spot. This means blood sacrificing the good & innocent to Muir, Jamboor, Oghma, Note, etc.
His quip would be "who doesn't like a good blood sacrifice?"

I'll think on it some more at work today.

The chariots could be like battle taxis, bringing said crazed warrior to the enemy quicker. Homers greeks were like that.

Nomadic horsemen, who are they, where from?

Should we invent beasts for the ivory that are still around?
Is it ancient ivory from long dead predators?
Or did they bring it as part of their barbarian idols when they migrated to the Lyre?

I kind of like the idea that its just general bones, but in the past the sabre tooth lions of the area were hunted to extinction. Their tusks were badges of honor yadda yadda yadda. Now the bones are bery common but the animals are not. Hunted or diseased to extinction.

Nomadic horsemen probably displaced by growing empire/society to the west. (Keep it simple?)

Catching up over the holiday weekend. Loving all the activity.

I figured Okrin could have encountered some or all of the group on the road. Of course if Karl is around the wizard enclave that's an option too.

Map is all set for me so I've got a good sense of where we are / where Okrin traveled from.

So it looks like we were three musketeers headed east to Endhome from Bards for sundry wizardly reasons

Should we invent beasts for the ivory that are still around?

Is it ancient ivory from long dead predators?
Or did they bring it as part of their barbarian idols when they migrated to the Lyre?

I kind of like the idea that its just general bones, but in the past the sabre tooth lions of the area were hunted to extinction. Their tusks were badges of honor yadda yadda yadda. Now the bones are bery common but the animals are not. Hunted or diseased to extinction.

Nomadic horsemen probably displaced by growing empire/society to the west. (Keep it simple?)

Yeah that is perfect and there are still a few sabretooth tigres about, I forgot that would be ivory.

Nomadic horsemen displaced by civilization to the west is just perfect, don't even have to look very far west, there is a situation like that right on the campaign map, the southwest part I haven't drawn in yet. Not a big empire, just three settler villages, but still a big change for that region. Now known as Quail Valley.

Elk produce ivory in theirbzck teeth

Ah, great that is even more perfect.

You know I was only thinking of elephants and whales?

Walruses as well, so I believe.

Coo-coo ca-choo

Would orc tusks and ogre tusks and such be considered ivory?

Mak will certainly not be patronizing Tent City Dentistry Clinic any time soon, regardless.

Two more barbarian ideas.

Barbarians who like to raid luxury goods. Their leader wears a grimey silk tea coozy as a hat. They have snowball fights using fine china when they recover porcelain on raids. They wear monocles and top hats and such as badges of honor.

Barbarians who are notoriously filthy and smelly. They have been at war with neighboring gnoll tribe for past 15 years. As a result they have become more like the gnolls. Smelly, filthy, barbarians with bad teeth.
Their leader is very furry and dirty and is in the process of signing a peace accord with the gnolls. (Re: has made the rivers run red with gnoll blood.)

aside: gnoll blood is red, right?

What would be good names for the tribes/chiefs?

Dropped a little prologue post in gameplay setting a scene to intro Makirut.

Remember no one else but Mak is nearby. We will cutscene to other PC's or the formation of the party but this little scene is just for Makintosh.

I think I am totally using makintosh as my spy codename now.

Cue james bond theme
mak. Mak makintosh. Licensed to, well, er, spy?

sorry, at work but pumped the gameplay along.

addendum: and it's ultra secret agent CODENAME MAKINTOSH everybody.

Loved the random chance thingy.
should have added 01 makirut slept through the attack in a cellar. Was never noticed by dark elves. Lol. Great intro btw

A one probably would have makirut wounded hiding in the area *under* the outhouse.
Gross gangrene

A one probably would have makirut wounded hiding in the area *under* the outhouse.

Gross gangrene

Happen to my dad once in rl grandpa barely saved him

off to bed guys. working a theater production tomorow from 6:30 AM to 1:30 AM :(

If I get cut during showtime I'll be online for a couple hours.

Hey, anybody have any other thoughts on the Barbarians?

I often find inspiration from archetypes / prestige classes. For one of my campaigns I worked up a barbarian tribe based on the true primitive archetype and rage prophet prestige class.

The idea was that the group of barbarians was led by a rage prophet. Their leadership provided a unique relationship with magic, which they would otherwise have avoided completely.

I'm not suggesting that you go that route for the barbarians, but rather that with the focus on ivory mentioned that the true primitive archetype might provide some inspiration.

There are plenty of nomadic/semi-nomadic tribes in actual history. The Cimmerians, were actual folks (sometimes spelled differently). If you look at most Indo-European groups or Proto Indo European groups they would fit that profile except for the whole 'collecting ivory' thing. That would indicate a group like some Native Americans that used shells as currency (wampum).

If you want I can run up a group of human (or non-human) tribes either loosely connected to the current civilized groups or entirely separate. The ivory deal seems to indicate a different economic structure than the locals. The problem with most fantasy settings is that the religions and pantheons are simply ridiculous.

Fictional gods in party hats, yessir.
Ridiculous for the most part.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. My opinionis that Cayden Cailean was a horrible idea.

Bacchus/Dionysis I approve, tho

Sorry I didn't post more today I'm kind of a vegetable after theater gigs. I can do routine posts but not ones that involve a lot of thought :p

Have good rest.

S'good.
Was listening to a song that fit well for Mak's character, and so figured I'd post the "I'm here" repetition from the song.
I'm starting to wrap my head around how this PC really is damaged goods.

I'm back at work but have iPad and wifi.

After mak's prologue you guys want to cut-scene to the formation of the party, or should we visit any other pc's to see what they were up to just before the quest?

Cut scene, but I would like to flashback to a prologue a bit in.

I just figured everybody got a prologue. Btw are we done with Mak's?

I'm fine either way.

I don't mind either way. Grimmy I'll pm you with some ideas in a couple of hours, I have to go to work right now.

Cool chillstrike I'll keep an eye out. Just got back from work myself.

Quite a meaningful day. I ran sound pro-bono for a benefit concert at a private high-school that rejected me as a kid...

Sounds like chaotic good to me
Kidding of course.
/// I feel like private schools dont know what kind of students they want, but they do know what kind of parents they want.

I didn't remember the whole story until after the event was over. I have a teenage brother and I called my mom to tell her I think he would really like it there. It is a special place.

She asked me, "do you remember why you didn't get in?" I said, "because we were poor right?"

She said "no honey. You're great aunt is on the board of trustees. The interview was just a formality, you would never have been refused. Part of their standard interview was to ask about drugs and you refused to lie. You told them you had tried pot and felt it should be legalized. The woman told me she was very torn up about it and meditated for hours before rejecting you."

The concert today was a benefit to raise money to buy the field next to the school grounds so it wouldn't become a commercial development and block the view to a nearby mountain. The bands were alumni flown in from LA. They spoke about how the school had changed their lives.

After sound check I walked with them to the rock where they smoked pot as students. The current students were there smoking pot of course. They nervously hid what they were doing until the bands lit up their own. Everyone laughed. I declined when it was offered to me. I smoke pot even more rarely now than I did then.

They took out binoculars and scanned the woods to see if they could spot any of the pot fields but it was too early in the season for the plants to be tall enough.

Hearing all of the stories about what a life-changing experience this school had been for these musicians, I was happy to be helping. I didn't remember the incident that had kept me from getting in until I called my mom to tell her what a magical place it was and that she should send my little brother there.

The story she told me put a new spin on an already interesting day.

Life is a mystery.

How is this? I can change some of it if I need to. I'm ready to get going whenever you guys are!

Morrigan rode her steed across the rolling hills. Her tribe should not be far now. She had grown up with the Tuath. She was the daughter of Cadeyrn and Brietta MacSual. Her mother met her father during the High Summer gathering many years ago. Brietta was born to a priestess of Freya. As such, she had sworn an oath of celibacy. She was a hunter of the great Goddess. She traveled with other young female warriors protecting the land. This was until she met Caderyn. It was love at first sight. She left her clan and joined the Tuath by marriage. The two lived happily among the Tuath. She was accepted into the clan and learned their traditions. She was soon pregnant and gave birth to the beautiful, blond baby. The couple named her Morrigan, which meant "Daughter of the Light", and raised her in the Tuath traditions.

Upon arriving, much had changed. Her mother and father had fallen during an orcish raid. She spent the first week with her people morning her parents. During this time, she was reacquainted with a childhood friend, Cian MacLir. He had grown into a handsome warrior. The two quickly rekindled their childhood friendship, spending hours training with each other in warfare. One night, Morrigan had a vision of great darkness decending on Bard's Gate. After much discussion and the blessing on the elders, they now travel towards Bard's Gate to seek their destinies.

Freya:
Freya, goddess of Love and Fertility
Alignment: Neutral Good

Domains: Animal, Good, Healing, War

Symbol: Falcon

Garb: Robes and cloaks of white, trimmed with white fur
Favored Weapon: Longsword, longbow

Form of Worship and Holidays: Harvest moon feast and before large hunts

Typical Worshippers: Human females
Freya is a lesser goddess of love and fertility. She is also the leader of a great band of women warriors known on some planes of existence as Valkyries. Freya represents fertility in all its forms. On this plane, Freya represents the cycle of death and rebirth. She is a goddess of the coming harvest as well as a goddess of sexuality and procreation. Her beast is the falcon, though she is fond of the winter wolf and the stag. She appears most frequently to her worshipers as a beautiful human woman dressed in robes and a cloak of winter wolf fur, though she occasionally appears as a huntress in leather armor with a sword and bow, or as a warrior in shining mail with glowing sword. She can take the form of a falcon—or any other bird—at will, as well as the form of a huge winter wolf.

Great character history/god write up.

Just a thought - is the whole party going to have some tie to Freya?
I could kind of see it working for Mak. It wasn't my initial intention, though. Original plan was Sefagreth, but Mak has spent the last winter or what have you bouncing around the frontier.

That, and I find it, well frankly it keeps paladin PCs happy :)

I misspelled some words including mourning. There are a couple others. I threw this together as a brainstorm. I'll fix them when I add them to my profile.

Cian worships Vionir, Goddess of Light LG

Okay. Vionir. Another nature god right? Not one of the old dead gods?
Cant keep everything straight while I'm at work, I'm afraid.

Looks great to me Morrigan.

Makirut is on his way to the Tent City outside Bard's Gate, a place known to cater to nomadic tribes. Maybe a good scene for Cian and Morrigan to meet up with Mak (and anyone else)?

My plan was to go look up my old friend Baron Von Icehands-Chillstrike. Maybe run into them on the way? What do you guys think?

That's sir baron von chillstrike the third thank you. Lol
sorry I haven't said much been very busy.