[AP] The Shackled City Adventure Path by GM Rutseg (Inactive)

Game Master Balacertar

Just clocked (as I judiciously updated my sheet -ahem) that Headback of Vast Intellect grants skill ranks = wearer's HD in one skill (per +2 bonus granted). Very cool item!

Where no skill is listed it will be a Knowledge Skill randomly decided. The headband's skill ranks do not stack, so for Maxim ideally Knowledge (History, Planes or Religion) would be most useful.

GMR - your call chief :)

I am happy for you to choose any skill, and to retrain any skill ranks you might have in. Just write down which skill you select in case it becomes relevant (antimagic fields and similar stuff).

I am happy for you to choose any skill, and to retrain any skill ranks you might have in. Just write down which skill you select in case it becomes relevant (antimagic fields and similar stuff).

Cool - given the nature of what we're dealing with I'll go slightly metagamey and select Knowledge (Planes) as it's a blindspot of Maxim's and becoming ever more relevant to the campaign.

Cheers chief :)

I was delaying on moving the party for you to have the opportunity to react to the scrying results.

Unless you let me know you are busy now and still want some extra time to react I plan to move us tomorrow along through the southern corridor full of doors.

Great post, GM Rutseg. Pitched a lot of names at ya, and you knocked them out of the park, one way or another.

Echoing my Bror - great posts and once again adds plenty of flavour to the campaign :)

As an aside Maxim will carry the Staff of Fire to use as necessary, but won't be keeping it. He has the spells to restore its charge capacity so it'll be full value when sold on.

Welp, I've just received a two-week vacation, courtesy of COVID (non-essential healthcare, I'm not ill). All apologies, if my post count mounts, as I'll need some way not to drive my wife nuts, lurking about the house...

I'm on my 2nd week of home working so can relate (also not ill - just a policy adopted by my Norwegian paymasters). Upside is my Skype-fu skills have just levelled up, but damn I miss not having my mutt around (he'd have loved having so much attention - although my work input would have suffered exponentially lol).

On a side note - given we are a global game and community - just extending my thoughts to everyone. Stay safe in these crazy times fellow Watchers!

Still business as usual for me (laboratory) so my posting rate will likely stay fairly consistent. Of course if that changes I'll let you guys know.

For those stuck at home, hang in there!

Still business as usual for me (laboratory)...

Lab eh... That explains the source of your superpowers! :)

Heh! If you mean Marigold herself, then perhaps. If you mean her handler...well, I'm pretty sure her superpowers are limited to Persistent Goobery, Ultrasleep, and Cookie-Hoovering. At least to hear the DH tell it, anyway :3

I am also working home for the same reasons. Today I went out to buy food for us after 7 days stuck home. The curve is not going down here (Spain) and the government is becoming more strict with the lockdown. Currently you can only walk down to go to the closest supermarket or to go to work (specific authorization of your company saying you must attend to office needed).

Stuff that should be simple is becoming a source of high tension. Private hospitals and protection material have been put under direct orders of the Health Department. We just hit the 1000 deaths (after 3 weeks of the initial spread) and hospitals are starting to design protocols for what to do once we run out of Intensive Care Units for the worst cases. Bad news if you are old or have a chronic illness. The army is starting to prepare temporary care units and hotels, deprived of tourists, are offering their rooms to treat the less severe of cases.

Here in Catalonia we are not that bad as they are in the capital, Madrid. But we are not good either. They do not have even enough tests to know the real spread of the virus. Each day at 20:00 people get out to the balcony and clap in homage to all the people who is making an effort to take care of the illness and keep the country moving while we are closed at home.

Fortunately me and my family we are ok, but I am most worried about my parents, 72 and 79 years old. They did not understood the danger until things started to peak up, and they don't really know how to minimize risks. All this lockdown strategy... it is really difficult for a culture so used to close contact.

Whatever, we are going to win this war and soon we will be running and laughing once more in the streets, squares and beaches.

Meanwhile, I will be more available in the forums through the day.

Take care you all!

Down here in New Zealand things are not that bad yet.

Having just retrained as a teacher, it is kind of nice. We still have schools open - as no community transmission yet. Kids are kind of worried, and all looking forward to school being closed at some point.

A bit of panic buying in shops, which is silly, we are a net exporter of food.

Thanks to all for the updates - its good to hear the perspectives from the ground rather than via press conferences and news bulletins.

GM-R my thoughts are with you and your parents at this time chief - I hope all of us come through this unscathed my friends.

I'm on my 2nd week of home working so can relate (also not ill - just a policy adopted by my Norwegian paymasters). Upside is my Skype-fu skills have just levelled up, but damn I miss not having my mutt around (he'd have loved having so much attention - although my work input would have suffered exponentially lol).

On a side note - given we are a global game and community - just extending my thoughts to everyone. Stay safe in these crazy times fellow Watchers!

I hear you. Thank god for my Dane! He has been happy to have me home even though he spends most of his time sleeping.

I am also working home for the same reasons. Today I went out to buy food for us after 7 days stuck home. The curve is not going down here (Spain) and the government is becoming more strict with the lockdown. Currently you can only walk down to go to the closest supermarket or to go to work (specific authorization of your company saying you must attend to office needed).

Stuff that should be simple is becoming a source of high tension. Private hospitals and protection material have been put under direct orders of the Health Department. We just hit the 1000 deaths (after 3 weeks of the initial spread) and hospitals are starting to design protocols for what to do once we run out of Intensive Care Units for the worst cases. Bad news if you are old or have a chronic illness. The army is starting to prepare temporary care units and hotels, deprived of tourists, are offering their rooms to treat the less severe of cases.

Here in Catalonia we are not that bad as they are in the capital, Madrid. But we are not good either. They do not have even enough tests to know the real spread of the virus. Each day at 20:00 people get out to the balcony and clap in homage to all the people who is making an effort to take care of the illness and keep the country moving while we are closed at home.

Fortunately me and my family we are ok, but I am most worried about my parents, 72 and 79 years old. They did not understood the danger until things started to peak up, and they don't really know how to minimize risks. All this lockdown strategy... it is really difficult for a culture so used to close contact.

Whatever, we are going to win this war and soon we will be running and laughing once more in the streets, squares and beaches.

Meanwhile, I will be more available in the forums through the day.

Take care you all!

I have been working from home since Tuesday.

The Spanish Flu killed 50MM and maybe upwards of 100MM. I get the sense this will not be nearly as bad. Draconian as these policies may be (and I am not entirely sure I agree with them as the long term economic pain will be tough) they should ensure that numbers like 100 years ago are not the case today.

I f*@+ing love Barcelona's balcony brigade. When I studied there, the noise the futbol crowds would make...

Ei! I did not know you studied at my city! When did that happen? I assume by your words you made it into the sacred lands of Camp Nou.

It has changed a lot these last 10 years, it is still a lively city, but we have gone through a bit too much to my taste.

@Kythel, if you could do an endure elements for JJ, he can prep an extra combat spell. With only two slots at level 1, I don't use them much, but I think every edge will be handy here, and if you are down to using CLW, we are in trouble!

@Kythel, if you could do an endure elements for JJ, he can prep an extra combat spell. With only two slots at level 1, I don't use them much, but I think every edge will be handy here, and if you are down to using CLW, we are in trouble!

OK!

Will adjust my spells and add JJ to the list of Endure Elements.

Oh, here we go... it was the year 1991, and a little choir from Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois ventured to Barcelona for a singing tour, under the supervision of Jorge Prats, ambassador to Catalunya for everyone he knew, and resident professor at Knox. I was his assistant for the entire two weeks, since I could run off and communicate our needs with my rudimentary Spanish.

If memory serves, because I've dated myself so badly, there was a celebration rally in the Plaça de Sant Jaume, and we could hear it from our hotel, windows closed.

The choir gets to sing in the Santa Maria del Mar, and in La Sagrada Familia, before driving up to Montserrat and singing there, then driving up to Lloret de Mar and Tossa de Mar. They even venture into the countryside, for a taste of the Pyrenees. For a college student, it was a piece of heaven, the entire time.

After the choir leaves for the US, a lone, beardless dwarf settles into an apartment with another student and a divorcee host, all the way out in Besos Mar, and commutes daily to the University for a single trimester.

Flash forward some years, and the same dwarf, much older, brings his girlfriend along for a Barcelona Program 25th year reunion, and proposes to her under the shadow of the Castell d'en Plaja...

Curse you Bror - you have my missus cooing in romantic appreciating of your proposal :)

Wow! That's a lovely story, thanks for sharing!

And it sounds like a real adventure too. All those places are great and I can tell you had a great time there.

1991-1992... I think that was probably the best time ever for Barcelona, finally under Democracy, recently accepted into the EU and everybody happily working together for the Olympic Games. I was just becoming a teenager myself and I do remember it as a sunny happy time.

You know... I have been working in Besos Mar for the last 4 years, and I have lived in the nearby neighborhood of Verneda-La Pau for most of my life. It's interesting but we might have crossed in person some time ago.

I can only imagine of the many adventures you had around you frisky old dwarf ;)

And kudos for the initiative with your fortunate wife.

Curse you Bror - you have my missus cooing in romantic appreciating of your proposal :)

Hah I proposed to my ex wife in the car on the side of the road at night next to the Old Canal Inn in Bloomfield NJ. But that damned C was never lit up....

[True Story!]

Nice.

My wife and I spent a wonderful Easter in Spain about twenty years ago. Good memories.

Transfer my Bears Endurance to Marogold, forgot I had the Belt! :-)

Will Save v DC 19: 1d20 + 17 + 2 - 2 ⇒ (20) + 17 + 2 - 2 = 37

Ah! I knew it! You had there another crit lurking to single-shot another of my bosses :D

AAAAANNNNDDDDD you STOLE it!!! ;P

(and that 19 is a threatened critical, had I got a full attack off hehehe)

US just passed Spain on the Confirmed Cases John Hopkins website, and we're woefully undertesting. Next number to exceed- Italy. My sister's an ER doc in Chicago, and she's barely sleeping, with over 50% of patients in her ER as confirmed/suspected COVID...

It's super surreal for it to be largely business as usual for me when everything else is shutting down. That said, I work in a small country hospital in a small country town rather than a large hospital in a big city. We've taken precautions - nursing home is basically locked down, no visitors here at the hospital, EVERYONE gets their temperature checked coming and going whether you're a patient or employee, etc.

No confirmed cases here yet, to my knowledge. But we do have confirmed positives in counties further to the east and west of mine so I expect it'll make its way here sooner or later.

Because people are understandably staying away from the hospital and our docs are trying to not admit patients unless they have to, our patient census and procedure counts have been down so folks that aren't FT have been having some hours cut.

And in all this, my parents (well, mom) are still planning to make their trip over to the Smokies late next month. Much as I hate to say it, I kinda hope they'll shut stuff down so they can't go - otherwise I doubt my mom will be talked out of going.

(Dad, who is basically just there to play chauffeur and guard the shopping bags, would be happy to stay home.)

Gah! Parents...

Sis ER Doc has rented an apartment downtown for a month, basically self-quarantining from her family and our parents. They're building temporary wood floors on the stone bricks of the pavilion outside the ER, to set up tents for pre-screening.

We keep looking at each other as possible vectors of communication...

@Marigold sounds like my in-laws. Both in their 70s, and while they are heeding that "70+ stay at home" advice, they would much rather be out and about - at the gym or shopping.

Luckily they have four very bossy daughters who have told them they are not allowed off their property.

Yeah, my mom and dad are 68 and (almost) 72 respectively. Dad is in pretty good health for his age but mom's got early-stage COPD and it's like...Mom. MOM. You're one of those 'high-risk' people they keep talking about! You used to work as a nurse! Stay home!

Unfortunately they live about an hour away from me so there's not much actual policing I can do :(

Interestingly here in UK they are using both student nurses and docs on the "front lines" as well as putting out the call for recently retired health professionals to come back into the fold.

London seems to be taking a hit, but rest of UK is ticking over (albeit locked down). Think living in the sticks and never getting visitors will finally pay off in the long run.

Good to hear a international perspective from our wee global group. News bulletins are one thing, but put my faith in your collective realities far more.

I share your frustration Marigold. My parents went to a funeral in Madrid a few days before the peak erupted there. At least I was able to talk them down for losing a travel to Malaga and convinced them to drop their weekly social activities and stay home four days before the official lockdown. I have not been with my parents for 2 weeks now, despite they live just three squares away from home, but fortunately they are ok. I cannot imagine how this would had been without the Internet, smartphones and video conferences technology...

I was tempted to rise the alarm in here a week ago, it seems silly now, but I thought it would not be understood same as myself 2 weeks ago would have not understood.

Well, I do now, for those of you that have a few detected cases, maybe even a few deaths in your country. Please, convince your older ones or the ones with respiratory problems to drop social activities and stay home. Being ahead a week or two is paramount because that is the time it takes them to come up into the surface.

When we had 1000 cases I was convinced we will be at 10000 by the next week. Well, we are at 30000 thousand now, and that is only official numbers, the reality is the health system just do not have enough tests. Most people has not been tested, even those with mild symptoms cannot be tested because we do not have enough PCR. The government is telling us they have secured 650000 new tests and one million for the next week. So, expect a brutal peak on numbers here in Spain, but that will be only showing up what we already have here. We know now that testing a lot and strictly isolating the positive cases is the best way to go, as South Korea has been successful with that strategy without having to issue a global lockdown. But they were prepared, because they suffered SARS last decade. Our governments and production system in EU and US where just not prepared for such a strategy.

If you have any capacity to influence your health system/government, or over factory production, let them prepare by acquiring or change production to PCR tests, ventilators, ICU beds and Personal Protective Equipment. If we had been convinced to do that a couple of weeks ago, we would be much better now. Now, it might seem exaggerated to you, but you are still on time.

If you want a good read about why to act now, and why to do it with high resolve, I highly recommend this blog: Coronavirus: The Hammer and the Dance.

My dice are on an alternating hot-and-cold streak it seems :|

We just went into lockdown for the whole country.

More time at home, but kids at home too, so less free time in total.

My dice are on an alternating hot-and-cold streak it seems :|

My dice are living through an Ice Age of Epic proportions, in every game...

Good thing I kept at least 1 remove paralysis spell memorized!

Literally just hearing that whole of the UK is now on a nationwide lockdown for minimum of 3 weeks from today.

I've played plenty of games of Pandemic, even taken a shine to Chthulu Pandemic, but I've never lived through such a time as to include a lockdown like we're witnessing.

Been calling all hardware stores for respirator masks, shipped off our personal stash (during a painting push), hells even thinking about buying a sewing machine and banging out homemades, as the healthcare folk keep asking... unreal. Sad, and unreal...

Or when everything else fails, you can try to print your own respirator...

My wife is now debating having me investigate 3D printers...

Woo, a new level! Doing some painting a bit later this morning so I'll try and get Marigold leveled later.

Epic scrap... some damned cinematic moments of Kikinnin vs the Dracolich in my head at least :)

13th Level to boot!

Great fight. Always dicey against Dragons much less Dracoliches. Will level up as Cleric.

May not get to that till tomorrow though.

I will happily notch Eldgammel twice for those crits. The luck began with the first roll to get airborne against the Tempest Breath...

Woo hoo, level 13!
Horizon walker level 7.