Ruins of Azlant (Inactive)

Game Master Nathan Goodrich

In case the rest of the party wants to pursue some skipped areas while Aurelian is away, I've updated slide 2 with arrows pointing toward rooms that the party may or may not have missed some things in:

Red Arrow: Clockwork Supplies
Green Arrow: Forge
Purple Arrow: Gear-shaped Room
Blue Arrow: Sacricity
Black Arrow: Library

Edit: also, did you guys take a long rest to recover spells after the clockwork patrol fight? If so, that would change a lot of my spell duration analysis.

Edit: also, did you guys take a long rest to recover spells after the clockwork patrol fight? If so, that would change a lot of my spell duration analysis.

I was under the impression we had and was gonna doublecheck that before repping. I'll go look right now.

I'm not sure, I'm going to defer to the others. My memory is fuzzy on that point.

Those rooms are from before I joined, so I'll defer to the others. I think Houghton would be interested in any libraries for knowledge and such, or the supply room for treasure!

The Sacricity and Library were only briefly explored while Houghton was there. And the other rooms weren't explored much more than someone poking their head into the door. So I'm not sure you really need to defer at all.

We pitched resting after the clockwork fight, here, and I have definitely been assuming we rested, because I was basically out of spells after the clockwork fight, so if we didn't rest I've been casting a bunch of spells illegally. ;)

Was it the library that we felt we needed a dispel magic to take care of? I remember a room with a prismatic ooze hazard, and us being like 'yeah that seems like a thing to come back to with D.M. prepped'. Other than that, I'm fine returning to any of those rooms. Or if it was a different room with the ooze, then any room but that one, I guess.

Yes, that mold is still in the library.

Out of the areas mentioned above, two (Sacricity & Library) seem to have reasons not to revisit right now: lack of haunt-fighting & lack of dispel.

Should we just go through the others in the order above? That would be clockwork supplies -> forge -> gear-shaped room

I'm down with proceeding in that order...

We did take a long rest though after the clockwork fight. here.

Invandi doesn't cast spells so it's not a super concern for him, though I did reset his Martial Flexibility uses.

I endorse that order.

Endorsed!

Yes, I agree.

Does anyone want to wind up the clockwork in the current room or search around in it?

Technical issues. Will post when I can.

Back, and just posted. Let's give it a half turn; if worst comes to worst, we can probably leave it in the room and just let it run out of time.

Hope you had fun!

Sorry for my silence, yall. My laptop died and it's been quite a week even aside from that. But realistically Zay doesn't have much to offer when it comes to clockworks, so *Shrugs*

Sorry to hear of your laptop, Zay :/

So, no one has craft (clockwork) - I think. We could perhaps build our maybe ally a cot to be carried around on? If we can lift it?

Aurelian seems ready to return to dungeon exploration. We can still get a bit of interaction with Aoinse in, but otherwise where would people like to go to resume your search?

Sure sounds good! It doesn't seem like we can do much more here.

Ready to keep exploring. Sorry to be so quiet, but I'm just at a loss what we could ask her-- her info is going to be 10,000 years out of date, so we can't really get current intel on what's going on in the complex. I guess maybe asking for information on back in the day? Or maybe she knows clockwork command passwords, so we can get them to stand down rather than fighting like the beach squad? I will post to that effect, but other than that, yes, willing to keep going.

My focus has not been great lately but I'll try and be more engaged.

Agreed, on all counts.

I'm closing on the house today, and then out of town Friday-Monday, so not sure how often I'll be posting. I should be back to normal on Tuesday.

I'm out of town this weekend as well, should be back Tuesday.

Going to be traveling the next couple of days, please bot if needed.

All, so sorry. I'm having a bit of a crisis involving a broken 1987 camper van and being in an area without specialist mechanics, coupled with no internet at the place I'm at. I don't think I'm going to be able to catch up until next week. So sorry, please bot as needed

Life still giving me a kicking at the moment. The mechanics in St. George, Utah, couldn't figure out the issue with our van. We're having Ron Burgundy (our van) towed to Las Vegas where there's a VW specialist.

We rented a car to get back to San Diego, which lost an under-car plate, causing us to get further waylaid, this time in the CA desert <cry/laugh emoji>. Hertz (don't rent a car from them!) was not helpful and presented us with one option (take a cab from a nearby town to Las Vegas to get another car) - the nearest town we broke down by didn't have a cab company that was willing to do this. We had a tow truck totally remove the plate, threw it in the back of the car, and continued on. Now we're fighting with Hertz about billing.

And now my spouse has Covid, so I'm currently on childcare duty while she quarantines and my work piles up (more). We've paid for this vacation, y'all!

I just can't see being able to get caught up on games before next week. Sorry again for the extended delay.

Damn, life is hitting you like a ton of bricks. Hope things get better.

Yikes; that sucks. Good luck!

I'll be out of the country (and with limited access to the forums/ability to post) tomorrow through Aug. 28, after which I'll be moving Aug. 29 to a new place.

I may get another post or two in before I leave and maybe a post Aug. 28 when I return, but I probably won't have regular posting again until Aug. 30 or 31.

Obviously feel free to bot me in the meantime.

Digging through piled-up work but hope to be able to keep up with things. Please bot if I'm holding things up.

Sounds like August is either busy or awful for a lot of us. I've been a mix of busy & delinquent lately. Sorry about the delinquent part of that.

Yeah, add me to the busy-- I've just started a master's program and am regretting my life choices there but I will absolutely post tomorrow. Would do it now but falling asleep at the keys.

If it helps, I'm on vacation as well. Even if you guys responded quickly I'm not sure I'd be able to work up a big combat post until next week. Let's get combat actions in, but don't worry about it if you are slow.

We've had a mold outbreak in our archives, which is very bad when you are the department head of an archives. So sorry, but I am again rolling with more than I can deal with. Hope to be back soon.

Congrats on starting a masters's program, dien!

To add, I have been knee-deep in a new role within my organization though my official start date wasn't until a couple days ago.

Life has been work recently, just trying to keep up with the flood of new things.

Things just aren't letting up so I'm going to have to drop. I apologize everyone, RL right now just isn't leaving me much bandwidth for anything. I've appreciated the opportunity to game with y'all!

Sorry to see you go, Tatienne. Good luck with RL!

Bummer. Take care out there, Tatienne, I really enjoyed gaming with you for what bit we got!

We'll probably need to recruit again now that Tatienne is gone. I'm thinking that we're close enough to the end of Book 3 that we should carry on for the time being though, and probably bot Tatienne through the remainder, unless you guys would rather have my Bloodrager instead.

Does anyone have an angle on someone that might like to join the campaign?

So, first of all, I'll be out of town again this weekend, back late Monday. I think this is my last trip for a while, however.

--

Good luck, Tatienne. Real life comes first. I enjoyed playing with you.

GM, I'd say bring Sarine back vs. botting Tatienne, but whichever is easier for you is fine with me.

No ideas on a replacement. I have to admit I've also been considering dropping, though was planning to wait to a more convenient point if I did so. I've largely switched to 2nd edition at this point, and having to go back and do first edition stuff frustrates me. That said, I like Aurelian and it's not like the game requires tons of my attention, so I haven't made any decisions yet.

Take care Tatienne.

I can't think of anyone to add myself.

I have no objections to you bringing Sarine in, but it sounds like it might be time to take a general check regarding our own interest levels.

I still like the chance to play Zay, they're one of my favorite builds honestly, but a slow slow dungeon crawl is mind-numbing in PBP. That's not a criticism of you, GM-- you've done a good job with the material-- it's just a statement of "I always find it impossible to track what's going on in dungeon slogs in this format" and we're also not the fastest group (and I take my share of blame for that). So for me it's sort of a constant "....okay look back through four pages to try and remember my buffs... read back through two pages to try and remember what's going on... is it a new day.... do I have spells back... ugh...." which definitely makes the game have some tedious aspects, unfortunately. Again, this is not anyones' fault, just a mixture of 'dungeon crawling', 'pbp', and 'loss of momentum.'

So, if we're going to check our interest levels, it'd be good to do it now before we invest time in trying (potentially) to recruit someone else, or before our GM goes to more work finishing out the book while also having to run their own PC as well, which I know from experience IS more work.

My current course load doesn't leave me as much time/energy as I'd like for crafting good posts, and that's definitely not ideal for PBP. Mott has more or less said he's kinda over it for Aurelian and 1e but that continuing the game is low effort, at least. What's everyone else's energy level for the game? Invandi, I know you're slammed with the new job. Any other thoughts? And Houghton?

Some information as we're considering our decisions, then.

The end of the third book (near where we are) can make for a nice conclusion to the campaign if we want it to. Moreso if I leave out the 'hook for future adventure' elements.

The fourth book is much less of a dungeon crawl but it belongs in a narrative arc with the last two books, both of which are more or less huge dungeons, kind of like the third book. Even if we skip a number of encounters, it'd take a long time.

I think Zay brings up good points. Definitely the dungeon slogs are part of the problem. If I know the end of the third book can make a nice conclusion, that would help make sure I'm reinvested. I'd love to say we finished -- even if it finished early -- instead of saying I'm dropping out/the game just ended.

We don't have responses from Invandi or Houghton on the current round of combat yet & I'm not aware that either has said they'll be out for a while.

It's longer than this should have gone on, but I'll wait until early next week & then bot people. Hopefully Monday morning. If I miss that deadline, feel free to post a reminder for me here in Discussion. I've been checking my campaigns page frequently of late and should see it.

Sorry, I have been slammed with the new job. It doesn't excuse my weekend absence though, things have just been busy.

I'm kind of in the same boat as Aurelian but I think I'm also finding myself really slow in checking in.

I was hoping that we would be able to finish things organically, but it really seems that we're down to Aurelian and myself for posting. I think at this point it's up to you, GM-- I know that it's very unrewarding to keep trying to put together expositional GM posts for minimal response at best. If you just want to call it, I certainly understand; if not, I'll try and keep posting (and try to do so more promptly), but I think it really is down to just me and Aurelian at this point.

Agreed.

I get where you are coming from on that. Give me a little bit to check on something. I'd hate to give up when we're this close to the end of a book.

I've been sluggish about getting to it. My current effort is just approaching my real-life Pathfinder group to see if anyone would be willing to take over some existing characters for the last bit at the end here.

I should have news soon on that.