I'd be game to check with Gaming Ranger first and see if he might be interested in returning, provided GM Rutseg is cool with it. If not, I'll trust the judgement of the rest of the group as to who else might be worth hitting up. Most of the folks I could recommend either have full dance cards or are more into the PFS/SFS side of PbP.
Just for your knowledge, Gaming Ranger is interested but it is just not a good time for him right now. We might know more about him in the near future though.
No worries - best to tilt at those familiar. So do we wait or test the waters for fresh blood?
No shortage of great players out there...
Quick question (since GMR just demo'd this in game) - how do you do "spoilers within spoilers" again? Think we've covered it before but indulge me :)
The trick is to not add title text to the inner spoiler ;)
Ahhhh... thanks for the insight behind the screen GMR :)
Hey folks, I've been/am fairly busy taking care of some RL business yesterday and today + I start three nights in a row at work tomorrow night so if posts are slow, that's why. Please feel free to bot Marigold if needed. Thank you for your understanding!
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It's just fine Marigold, thanks for the heads up and take care!
+1 Take care Lil' Miss :)
Before I do my post... I thought I'd claimed one of the various magic bows we have found from time to time (I have vague memories of a strenght adjusted flaming one) but can't see it on my sheet.
Can anyone recall if we sold them, or if JJ got allocated one as a share of the loot?
^That sounds vaguely familiar but don't take my word for it.
Also thanks guys! My husband and I are starting to house hunt and so I'll be spending some of my days off for the next however-long going to look at them (this is what I did yesterday).
@JJ: No idea mate - harkens back to me asking that everyone make sure all claimed items are noted on sheets ;)
We've had a few bows pass through the groups hands. Checking back on in-game posts the one you were coveting was Aushana's flaming longbow (a composite longbow made for +5 strength). Juraan and you circled it but he couldn't pull the thing. JJ's strong enough now...
Honestly can't remember if we sold it or what...
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Last time JJ asked for the bow both Maxim and Juraan were busy and he had no answer.
The last thing we know is the bow was not cashed in yet. It was clear JJ was the only one really claiming it, because Juraan could not use it, but he offered to deliver it to the pot anyway.
Considering the information we have, I am inclined to think the item was not sold, it was too valuable and it had a claim. Thus, most probably JJ made sure to carry the bow around during your adventures.
It would be useful to leave a full inventory with all items and mark them as assigned, claimed or sold to solve historic questions like this. Other option is to leave a post stating what items pick up each person.
I will try to update the gameplay later tonight or tomorrow morning.
Have a good weekend!
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So.. +1, flaming, strength adjusted (+5)- I think. If it was higher than +1, then I can adjust the attack and damage rolls.
Eek, I'm going to wait for JJ to post because that will affect my own actions...
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With only 19 hp, save or no save doesn't make a big difference here.
Luckily hero points do. I'm guessing Phrasma might not take kindly to a renegade priest using destructive magics after raising the undead in her own temple.
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Riot Fest 2019 has arrived- I will ghost until Monday, though I will try and get all games updated today, before I depart for the mayhem.
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Oh! Have a fantabulous time! :D
Riot Fest 2019 has arrived- I will ghost until Monday, though I will try and get all games updated today, before I depart for the mayhem.
The Hu! Lucky bror! Enjoy :)
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These festivals always end up breaking your heart a little, when you’ve got conflicts :)
The Hu definitely gets the nod, but I might have to sneak over and listen to Cleopatrick, if only to say I got to see them...
There’s also a movement to organize a Wall of Death to go off during the Village People...
Loot sheets been fully updated - some items still to be identified but I've included them (and their values) for our reference rather than the PCs.
Maxim is claiming one of those Metamagic Rods of Silent Spell. Could come in situationally handy in stealth missions/engagements.
Has his eye on one of the Amulet's of Natural Armour, but might be our meatshields fine warriors would each benefit better from the boost of these.
Boots of Striding and Springing grant +10ft movement so Lil Miss or one of our dwur duo could also benefit from having longshanks movement :)
An amulet of natural armour would be a godsend. I'm haemorrhaging hp in each battle. Lack of heavy armor or a shield really tells.
Its yours mate - still one going a begging for me Bror, Lil Miss or personal adornment :)
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Definitely take it, JJ!
As for the other, it looks like both Maxim and Marigold are currently rolling around with an AC of 21 and Kikinnin's is 27. I'm generally happy to let the folks who have a track record for getting punched in the face get first dibs on AC items so if Kikinnin wants it then I'm cool with that. Marigold (luckily) doesn't get smacked around too often :)
Right, updated and thanks.
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Kikinnin will probably not contribute to your decisions until Tuesday. Thus, if you don't want to delay, you can probably decide between you three. The dwarf has his own voice, but he sure will understand if you three are in line with some path.
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Oh sure, but I figured it would be out of character for Marigold to not ask at all :)
I'm good with taking ourselves, Todd's body (if we think it'd be safer with us) and the cage to Occipitus, though it sounds like we'll need to figure out what to do with the guy we took prisoner.
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Well, if we leave him behind, he'll finger us, and put us in the worst possible light. Of course a speak-with-dead will do that anyway. And a commune or similar magic will probably reveal our hand in what went on.
Willing to bet nobody will go a step further and see why.
JJ would totally not be up for killing the priest though. Take him to off-plane and maybe a view of the afterlife might convince him to change his ways.
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Personally I'd take the prisoner with us - he can enjoy Occupitus' hospitality for a while. If he shows himself to have the potential for redemption then we can return him at a later date. If not... he can fill one of those empty cysts with his bones.
Vanderboren's corpse should stay - we grab it then we're likely to have the Stormers hunting us (the thieves) as grave robbers - essentially acting as patsies for the shadow players who do want to find us.
If the bad guys raise him or use the corpse as a raw material for an undead then we have the Stormers onside via the defilement of poor departed Todd. Plus we get the chance to kill the smug basterd... (ahem) "end the suffering of his desecrated soul"...
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Yeah, I’ll try and have something posted Monday. I tried, and failed, to keep up with my Ex-Marine Brother-in-Law yesterday. I thought I hydrated well enough, but between IPAs, vodka cocktails, and a whiskey nightcap, and I’m nursing a throb behind my left eye... One...more... day...
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A hardy dwarf like yours never reels on a drinks night in good company sir. Remember to get a good taste of the spirits between cup and cup though. Cheers!!!
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The throbbing was easily remedied by some kahve and ibuprofen, like us old dwarves typically require after exertion :)
The weekend was joyous. Live music is my church. The Flaming Lips played the entirety of their album, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, and it was glorious. Definitely the highlight of the Fest. The Hu was grand, followed by the insanity of Gwar... words can't describe a Gwar performance, but there was plenty of sprayed stage blood, both red and green.
The crowd of Andrew WK tried to start a bonfire, Patti Smith sang Beds are Burning by Midnight Oil, and Jack White went off on his guitar solos...
Other than a Tool concert in November, I'm fully tanked up for this year.
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Sounds totally awesome, Kik! Glad you had such a good time :)
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Glad to have you back bror (albeit sans liver, eardrums* and a little bit of your soul lol)
Regards the game - Ryan could use Dimension Door to get him and Todd's body to the Kirk o' the Cudgel? From there he could summon his cousin and the other Stormers - explain what he knows (or what he wants to reveal)?
* I'm not one to talk - have Slipknot and Starset early in 2020 :)
You can certainly request Ryan to do that stuff. He also counts with teleport.
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I will be moving around until October. As such my ability to put large posts will be null. Fortunately we are at a point which is very much player driven and thus it should be flowing with just small inputs from the GM.
You basically have to figure out what to do next and how to do it. Remember the information you have found or discovered at the Cathedral of Wee Jass.
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Understood! Safe travels GM :)
Copy that Game Leader
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So guess we need to review what we know and plan the next step. Want to do that here then enact in gameplay?
My thoughts (spitballing ideas and theories)
"Thanks for searching for the dwarf. He is now caged. You will be rewarded for your loyal and efficient assistance."
- the dwarf in question is most likely Zenith... or at least his body. Concern here with this lot and their perverting of the Church of Pharasma is that Zenith may have been raised or changed into something risen? Perhaps the cages transform their prisoners or drain their life force somehow (for what purpose if so)?? Could this be connected to the Soul Pillars that we've seen referenced - they work in tandem?
Velasia and her Wee Jasian grave robbers on Occupitus were searching for this through various planes. We know the Lens guided them to Zenith's body. In whose hands does it now lie? Will it guide them to living folk or just the dead? If the former then we are all likely in danger (and we should possibly mull masking enchantments/items from scrying/detection).
Velasia planned to animate his body. For what purpose? An undead simulacrum of a famed noble wouldn't fly unless they planned to revive him as an intelligent undead who'd be corrupted enough to join this shadowy plan of evil...
You find out the City Council and a bunch of Lords have been injecting large sums of coin into the temple coffers for the last couple of years. The concept of the payments is "Construction works". Interestingly the accounting finishes two months ago and there are no more recent documents.
The City Council and Nobles are implicated here (at least from a slush fund perspective or are they the Thirteen??), so begs the question who can we trust...
The sheaf of notes are letters exchanged between Embril and what you conclude to be a Cagewright loremaster named Fetor Abradius. Most of the letters are brief reports that allude to a continuing and taxing search for something unnamed. Each letter concludes that all remains on schedule, but that the final answers still elude the searcher. One of the letters goes into far more detail than the others.
Kikinnin's Translation of the Letter
I'm thinking we need to target this Fetor Abradius. As a loremaster he'll have a helluva lot more knowledge than some Jasite patsy. He states in the translated letter that the High Priestess was his only ally among the "Thirteen". We may be able to convince this Fetor to support new allies in us?
Something that Ike said in the great battle still resonates:
From the top of the dome, Ike shouts back at Kikinnin "I have nothing personal against you Kikinnin. But you have grown too powerful and I have been charged to finish you and your group before you cause more problems!"
Firmly puts us on the radar and also shows our actions are stymieing our faceless foes enough that we're no longer an easy fix. This is good in the sense that straight up assassination attempts might not happen again, but I still think they'll target those who we care about and value. Their solutions to our problem will also become either more desperate (which might allow us to expose them) or will become graver (in terms of the threat power level). This was borne out by another of Ike's speeches:
Ike seems nervous as the group survives to his column of fire "It's too late. If I don't stop you here and now, things worse than death will go over my head".
Things worse than death... :S
We should consider and plan accordingly. Relocate folks/friends to the Malachite might be a thought?
So these assassins were contracted to kill us;
On the pouch of the dead woman, you find out a contract between Ike and the Scarlet Brotherhood "to kill or scare out of Cauldron the group called the Cauldron Watchers". The contract has a list citing each of you and goes into great detail on your skills, combat strategies and city connections. Apparently, the contract was signed in Sasserine just a couple of days after your return to Cauldron. The priest had offered a sum of 5000 golds for each of you who they manage to kill.
Now, having (apparently) failed - will they try again? Will their failure earn us their enmity as well? Could we counter hire them (or pay off the deathmark)??
Let me know if I'm missing something obvious lol - just pulled the last pertinent gems of info we'd discovered and have collated and commented :)
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Normally I'd be happy to hash a lot of this out in-character but given how busy a lot of us are right now (including our GM) I do think it'd be more efficient to talk some of this over here first and then translate it to IC so we don't end up with 5+ pages of back-and-forth conversation that we'll need to wade through later.
I'll try and come back with my own thoughts on each spoiler in a bit.
JJ's big worry (and has been for some time) is Tessa and Sarah He might also start to worry about all his little brothers and sisters in the orphanage.
Have we seen Terram recently? JJ really should make another visit there to play with them all and give them some more goodies.
Didn't we find a big journal back in that cave that had the humanoid swimmer with mind control powers. Can anyone remember if this Festor appeared in there, as I thought there were a number of names listed in it.
Normally I'd be happy to hash a lot of this out in-character but given how busy a lot of us are right now (including our GM) I do think it'd be more efficient to talk some of this over here first and then translate it to IC so we don't end up with 5+ pages of back-and-forth conversation that we'll need to wade through later.
I'll try and come back with my own thoughts on each spoiler in a bit.
110% agree Lil' Miss - get the crux of it all nailed down, then enact in gameplay. Given GMR's subtle nod that we need to work out the status quo as we see it (and ergo our next move) - think what we do next will echo significantly in the next stages of the campaign.
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@JJ - I did a quick thread search (though those aren't always super reliable) and didn't turn up any mention of Fetor Abradius prior to the correspondence we discovered in the temple just recently.
Looking at everything we've found it seems like there was a big push by these people to find the 'Lens of the Blacksun' - which is what Velasia and her goons were up to when we encountered them on Occipitus. At some point, somewhere, they found it and then used it to find Zenith's body for some unknown purpose. While some of the clues we've found definitely seem to point towards Carceri, I think there's another option that we could explore.
In Kikinnin's translation of the letter between Embril and Fetor Abradius there were two other names that popped up: 'Dittziss Bale' and 'Razzan-Ruzal'. Marigold couldn't place much about the former name but she *did* recall something about the latter.
(Which I technically don't think I passed on IC because we were in the middle of a combat and then it slipped my mind afterward.)
So...this 'Razzan-Ruzal' is somewhere near the Demonskar. I don't know if the Soul Pillars are also there or if they're somewhere else, like on Carceri itself. Either way, I think if we can figure out where the Soul Pillars are and how to get there, we're likely to find Fetor Abradius. It would help if we were in a position to do more research somewhere like Bluecrater, but given we've had an official hit put out on us I don't know that it'd be very safe to risk it right now.
If we're thinking of trying to relocate our friends and loved ones to somewhere safer, Malachite or Redgorge would probably be our best bet. Occipitus would be a last resort because that's going to be a very hard sell to most folks - not to mention it'd mean that many more people who would then know about Marigold and her connection to the place. Not a good thing when we've got people hunting us.
And I can't see Gretchen wanting all her orphans running amok in the abyss :-) No way would JJ want to take them here... well, not after he got around to actually thinking about it rather than just tossing ideas out there to see what they sound like.
I wonder if the cages and the soul pillars are related - or even the same thing somehow.
Thirteen cages, didn't we hear thirteen somewhere else too?
That letter mentioned it.
So there is a ritual, and the cages are a part of it. But the Soul pillars might have more information about the ritual.
I somehow don't think the thirteen are going to lock themselves into cages, though maybe that would make a gate to this prison plane system - that sounds like the kind of thing a ritual might do.
Either that or 13 cages to house 13 "soul batteries" for the nefarious Thirteen to grow in power or ascend to something daemonic or otherwise?
At least with 1 cage in our possession one of the bad-guys is losing out... which means they'll need a replacement from the Fire Giant...
Am wondering if we need to take out the Jotunn to limit the villainous cabals ability to generate cages?
Or at least go back and see if we can learn any more or get that last cage off him.
If there is a ritual, then I'm guessing they will need all thirteen or it won't work for any of them.
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(Which I technically don't think I passed on IC because we were in the middle of a combat and then it slipped my mind afterward.)
This was absolutely my fault. I am sorry I pushed the action way too fast in that occasion. I will try to give more time to cope with all the info in the future. I think I was worried I might get stranded in the middle of the combat during my vacation and wanted to close this section fast.
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No worries GM, it happens! At least I did remember it in the long run :)
In other news, we bought a house. Still getting the loan stuff sorted and underway but it's official. We close on Halloween! We are both very excited and very anxious :)
Woo, or should that be boo!
What a day to close. Congratulations! Big move, this your first house?
Thanks! And yep, we're first-time home buyers so this all new territory :O