Volcano's Land - A New Beginning

Game Master Miner Cotren

(I promise I'll look at the details of the crafting soon!)

State of the Game, September 2018

I can honestly see this game going on for a good long time with the four of us. I don't say this often enough, and I feel like it would get silly if I 'favorited' every single post you all made, but seriously, the voices and personalities of your characters and the way you interact with each other is a joy to behold. Thank you.

OLD LOOSE ENDS

--How was the white obsidian discovered? How was it made?
--Why was So Khong so interested in Inam's sword and Etrah? (likely because of the potential for Etrah to become a phoenix)
--How bad is the infector problem?
--Why did that spawn yell "Son"? (this was the first time you went to the basement)
--Who was that voice in the darkness? (the same pale elen who you met in the cave in the fire plane)
--What is in Ibinu's box? How to open it? (the box is gone now!)
--What is the symbol So Khong drew? ("The Smiler", though you still know little of these cultists' intentions)
--What's with the mephits? (escaping from the spawn on the fire plane)
--What is Ky La up to? Why is he researching darkspawn? (he is an agent of the "Smiler")
--Who was Vecc, really? (an old High Inquisitor; one of the keepers of the old Blessed)
--Who is the Inquisitor of Conversion, that worked on Michan?

NEW LOOSE ENDS

--How bad is the magical damage that was done to the Temple? Will this affect the war?

--Who or what exactly is Krz? Why was he sent back with Kallik? What language is he speaking?

--What are the intentions of the Young Elder and its followers?

--What will be the lasting effects of renovating the images of the Lady in the Temple?

--Where are the High Inquisitors now? Were they all Smilers?

--What will be the Smilers' next move?

--How are the Watches (arguably the second most powerful force in Hearth, next to the Temple) reacting to the Blessed and their de facto rule of the Temple?

--How is the Council acting these days?

--What is up with the third level of the basement, and the oracles?

--What will Dove's decision be regarding Kallik's murder of the dirty street ifrit? What will Dove do about Captain Entoro's treachery?

--What is the "truth of the dark" the pale lady elen, Consolata, pleaded you to find before she died?

--What exactly is the "fire plane"? Volcano's home world? A realm of the dead? An elemental plane?

--Did So Khong survive whatever punishment the "Lords of Incus" may have exacted upon him?

--What happened to the dragon Ssarkofaugos after he flew off? What about Ibinu's scars?

--Why is Inam's family seemingly "cursed"?

Sorry for not getting a post up. Work kicked my apparently sick butt. I am ok just know wake enough to kind of function.

And I agree about this game being freaking awesome!

Laptop is down. Please bot m3 as needed

botty bot bot "OH NO THE ROBOTS HAVE TAKEN OVER" bot bot botty bot "AHHH NOW THEY ARE IN MAI BRAIN" bottity bot bot botty bot "Everything Is Just Fine Nothing Is Wrong We Are All Humans Here Doing Human Things" bot bot

There are not bots here continue as normal. No bots.

Ok, I've updated the campaign info page to (hopefully) be slightly less hideous.

--Campaign Diary, NPCs, and Places are likely the things you'll be referencing most often

--Languages and Idioms are important for posting

--Race Info

--Followed by a tab more descriptive than "Society"

--Next three tabs are gods, magic, etc, also updated descriptions of tabs.

--Next four are grouped into environment, etc, then maps

--And finally put all the essentially unnecessary stuff at the very bottom

Let me know what you think!

So the screen on my laptop is mostly a black void and sometimes taunts me by working at random intervals. I am back but there is no guarantee it will last so if I do not post feel free to bot me as needed. Hopefully I will get it fixed over the weekend.

Ibinu only rolls 1s and 20s - no middle ground!

Feast or Famine!

I play with people like that though I do not know what it feels like. 20s are rare though 1s seem to love me and the dice like to get as close as they can.

I always edit a copy of an old map on google docs to save time with your colors, the legend, etc. I looked at our latest map - last edited June 20th. This is one of my PbPs alright - 3 months between combats!

My guess is the watch will be attacking our flank...and I'm fairly certain Inam and Etrah have increased the level of pissed off this beast has.

You're welcome. :-P

(I promise I'll look at the details of the crafting soon!)

So I was looking through my feat options for next level (I actually like to plan much farther ahead than 1 level so this is nothing, lol) and I found a feat that should give me what I want on crafting production, maybe even better than I wanted.

Master Alchemist Feat

I'd run the numbers again before going 100% on the feat, but if you just want to wait until/if we hit lvl 7 and have me run those numbers using the standard crafting rules before making any decisions, then that would at least save you some effort at this time. I could just use my remaining days this month (assuming I don't die soon) to maybe learn some formulas and craft some more potions instead worrying about poisons.

If it's not a huge deal, I would appreciate that.

That is, let's stick with the "you made one dose for sure because I didn't want you to waste all that effort", and then the rest can be potions, etc. Run the numbers when you get a chance to see if this is a feat you'll be going with.

Also, I owe you Culkin's formulae:

1st
ant haul
blend (because sylphs are basically elves)
endure elements
expeditious retreat
identify
keen senses

2nd
fox's cunning
air step

He happily trades with you for whatever you are willing to give (over a cup or two of cawcoh)

I am amused that our 12 constitution alchemist appears to be the tank of the party. Temp HP and fast healing are wonderful things!

Well the others decided to go DPS sooo... someone has to do it! :P

Also Ibinu appears to be in a unique position to hold aggro at the moment and the goal is to keep the tree from being attacked so he'll prolly continue trying to survive the attacks until he goes thud.

I can tank! One hit took me to half health so I wanted a little protection but you pissed her off before I could do it :D

To be fair I think we all did a little to piss her off. Besides...Ibinu has the highest AC at the moment. :-P

for crits, the way I like best is to do

ATTACK ROLL -- shows a crit
(1st damage roll)

2nd ATTACK -- confirms or not
(2nd damage roll, which will be added to the first if the crit is confirmed)

You just did a critical with acid (the statue's weakness), so regardless of the method used that was more than sufficient :)

The fire elen are the guards from 'The Watch', right? Can we get a sense if they are acting of their own accord or under her control magically?

Inam has a pretty good base sense motive - it's not necessarily that black and white though. You recall that the Leiutenant almost uttered a slur against oreads in your presence, so there's a healthy amount of natural anger here, but it is certainly being exacerbated but the Lady's effect.

I have a thought - I think the narrative would flow a little more smoothly if the 5 week break has already happened.

In short:

--Ibinu's crafting is done (let me know when you are done with all your time usage)

--Inam's clean up of the Temple is done

--And Kallik, if you find this reasonable: since you have knowledge arcana and knowledge planes, you could be researching the door to the 3rd floor basement (which leads to the oracles)

---This is all in addition to any interactions with Egret, Bian, Edoardo, Sophia, Antonio, Culkin, the council, etc you wish to have.

--Inam's mother came right at the end of your 5 week break, so that's still current.

--Then you met in your chambers, the root attacked, and here we are at the present.

I don't think this will present any problems - is this reasonable?

Inam, let me know if you have time to post an action this round or if you prefer me to bot you. I'll plan on botting Sunday night if I haven't heard back.

Inam, let me know if you have time to post an action this round or if you prefer me to bot you. I'll plan on botting Sunday night if I haven't heard back.

Sorry for being MIA. Had every intention of posting Saturday, but spent all weekend dealing with a "catastrophic computer failure" at work...

On the plus side I now have a new computer to control the radios...

No big deal, weekends have always been optional for us anyway. Glad to hear you have a new computer at work! Yay for new tech!

The work plot thickens! The 'new computer' they brought me has a soundchip and speakers that don't work. Apparently it's a refurb, which is fine...except the server it's supposed to be running for me is the freaking radios!

/le sigh.

To add to the turmoil, their server 'fix' fried the other stations. Time to dig out the styrofoam cups and twine...

Huh. Well, the down side of new tech is when it doesn't work and...somehow destroys everything else? Sorry to hear about it!

That sucks Inam. Nobody seems to want to pay for good tech despite how important it is.

Okay, about potions. I've discovered that the rules state that I cannot craft any that have a 'range' of 'personal'. This means, the 'see invisibility' potions I crafted earlier are not allowed. May I just swap those out with Cure Moderate Wounds (same level) instead?

Culkin's extracts Ibinu learns.

1st
blend (because sylphs are basically elves)
expeditious retreat
identify
keen senses

2nd
fox's cunning
air step

Ibinu offers the following extracts to Culkin if he wants any.

1st
Cure Light Wounds
Shield
Bomber’s Eye
Crafter’s Fortune
Detect Secret Doors

2nd
Cure Moderate Wounds
False Life
See Invisibility

It appears that copying these will take 1 hour per extract level so... 1 full day of 8 hours would get Ibinu's done. Assuming Culkin wants some or all of the extracts it will take 1-2 more days so let's just call it 3 days and a lot of cawcoh.

Thus, 17 days remaining - Each Potion brewed takes 1 day to complete and 1/2 the cost in materials

4x Identify (4 days, 100g)
2x Endure Elements (2 days, 50g)
1x Fox's Cunning (1 day, 150g)
3x Cure Moderate Wounds (3 days, 450g)

And that's about it for now, 10 days and 750g spent. This means 7 more days left, but Ibinu will be searching out a few more items in town to spend some of his remaining money on.

I'll post that stuff separately plus indicate how all my potions will be distributed to the team (hint, Etrah gets them all because I like him the most). :P

Potion distribution

Kallik
2x Identify
1x Cure Moderate Wounds (2d8+3 healing)
2x Endure Elements
1x Detect Secret Doors

Inam
1x Cure Moderate Wounds (2d8+3 healing)
2x Endure Elements
1x Detect Secret Doors

Etrah
NOTHING BECAUSE I LIED HE'S A JERK OF A CHICKEN

Gear Ibinu wants to go buy
Formula Alembic (200g) - allows Ibinu to reverse engineer a potion or extract and learn the formula to put in his book, reusable.

Deathwatch Eyes (2000g) - permanent deathwatch spell from magic goggles.

Yep, cure moderates will be fine.

I missed the Etrah remarks the first time through and now I cannot stop laughing.

Also, does anyone else have a heck of a time searching for "mirror image" on d20pfsrd.com ? I get references to other spells (this is like mirror image but it causes damage, etc) but it's like mirror image cast invisibility on itself. Very confusing.

(thanks for the original link Kallik, otherwise I would have been driven mad)

I've started using Archives of Nethys (since it is now the official pathfinder resource document).

Mirror Image

It takes a little bit to load stuff, specifically searches, but I did get to it easily. Plus, the owner of the site seems to be very invested in improving it so I expect it'll be getting quicker and better too.

I'll keep that in mind going forward, thanks!

I have noticed that the srd is having some search issues

Sorry for being MIA yesterday. On top of work beating me to a pulp, found out some trouble news about my grandfather.

Working on getting caught back up this evening.

Appreciate the updates, as always, and I am frankly amazed (and thankful) that you make time for this considering how...exhausting your line of work must be.

I agree and am always happy when you can post :D

I think all three of you have more to say to each other IC (when you get the chance), so I'm holding off for tonight and I'll plan on updating tomorrow night.

I was busy all weekend. I'll try to catch up today but it may not happen. Baby has been fussy all day and we are leaving to pick up our doggo soon.

Dog + baby = busy. That's why I only have the kiddos for now.

I don't really want to cut the current scene short, because I know you all want to discuss what's been going on, so for now I'm going to hold off on updating. I also know bare minimum Ibinu is super-busy at the moment and Inam was having issues at work, so when 2/3 of the PCs are swamped I think we've found the best policy is to ride it out and continue our awesomeness after a getting a chance to breathe.

A friendly reminder of recent events for when we resume:

--The iron bell was destroyed and consumed by the Young Elder

--Kallik helped purge the foul spirit within the bell, some kind of lingering essence of anger

--Your quick actions, along with Ibinu's healing hands, have ensured the Elder's well being.

--The guards from the Ardere Watch are being taken to Dove, and oreads from the Dims Watch will be posted to help guard the Elder.

--That same spirit, avatar of the Lady or not, escaped its shell and seemed to be heading toward the Temple (it's possible it just dissipated)

--There is the problem of the diminishing power of the Temple's magic, as Inam mentioned

--Kallik (retroactively over the break) has been working with Tomas Crosso, a librarian (not a priest) who survived the death and destruction within the Temple and seems to be the remaining authority of the library's sprawling contents

Crafting Blue Whinnis Poison, DC is low at 14 though if I beat it by enough it increases the speed of crafting. The cost is 120g, so my target is 1200 silver and my cost per attempt is 40g.

4. Make an appropriate Craft check representing one week's worth of work. If the check succeeds, multiply your check result by the DC. If the result × the DC equals the price of the item in sp, then you have completed the item. (If the result × the DC equals double or triple the price of the item in silver pieces, then you've completed the task in one-half or one-third of the time. Other multiples of the DC reduce the time in the same manner.) If the result × the DC doesn't equal the price, then it represents the progress you've made this week. Record the result and make a new Craft check for the next week. Each week, you make more progress until your total reaches the price of the item in silver pieces.

Week 1 attempt 1

[dice=Craft Alchemy + Crafter's Fortune]1d20+19+5 ended up being 37

So 37 times 14 = 518... (I needed 1200 to get 1 dose)

Using instead the adjustment from the Master Alchemist Feat it plays out as such...

(37 + 2 from feat) x 14 = 546

And now my target is 120 instead of 1200 so I beat my target by 4.55. Beating the target by more than 4 means the dose is completed in 1/4 of the time. Assuming 5 days (if we do work week instead of week week, see spoiler for my thoughts) that means I finished in 1.25 days. The final bonus of the feat is to allow me to craft as many poisons as my intelligence modifier per attempt instead of just 1. My int modifier is currently +4. So I would have made (I still pay the crafting cost of each poison) 4 poisons in 1.25 days if I have that feat. That is much more in the range that I was thinking would work for downtime crafting. I obviously would have continued crafting which I'm guessing would give me about 12-16 poisons in one week, depending on how my rolls went.

5 day workweek works for me, and making ~10 poison per week is perfectly reasonable considering you are a mid-lvl alchemist with a feat specifically for helping crafting.

If it becomes to unbalanced or something, we can always trade it out for a different feat and either scrap crafting or come up with a new setup.

I'm always happy to work with you and the group to keep things in check and it ain't like we haven't gotten a couple bonus things here or there. :P

It might have been a bigger deal if you had tried to mass-produce some of the crazy poisons (I'm not a huge poison guy, but I think there are some floating around that do like 3d6 con damage). But as it stands, you're trying to get an ability that knocks people out, which is valuable, not overpowered, and in-character, so I'm not anticipating any craziness. But we'll see - I appreciate, as always, that you are all willing to work out character options, etc.

Oh, and I owe you newspaper headings over the break, as Ibinu requested long ago:

1) An "elen interest" story on how panicky much of the city felt when there were rumors that the Blessed has left town (when you went into the Rift) Thankfully, those rumors were unfounded, as the Blessed are still among us.

Related, there is an anonymous article in one of the local rags that the Inam, the Fenice Madre, was actually responsible for the rift. Various theories (the phoenix is power mad, Inam's disrespect of the Lady, etc) are given.

2) Repairs to Brightfield Arena are finally underway, though it is unclear exactly who is funding it (it is not the Temple)

3) The Mithril Makers have all but abandoned their HQ in the north of town - only a few dozen amateur alchemists remain. Rumor has it that one of the Watches with a vendetta against the Makers try to take advantage of the chaos (when there was almost a civil war in Hearth way back when). The sylphs were sick of the poor treatment, and left.

4) The Gasp trade seems to have been eliminated in Hearth - between the mass exodus of sylphs and the efforts of the "townies" as you call them (who concentrated their time into breaking up Gasp rings), most of the dealers have been run out of town.

5) The Watches are still slow to re-organize after most of the Captains were killed. This has resulted in higher crime throughout the city. Many rich families have been taking out contracts with the Condottieri guild (mercenaries) rather than trusting the Watch.

In addition, the Commandant's Quarters have been refurbished into a large armory, marking the end of an official "leader" of the Watches. Potential Captains for the various Watches seem to be arguing for guarding their own district's interests, rather than working with other Watches.

6) The oread migration is covered in a two-part series. Except for oread families who have been living in Hearth for generations, nearly all the oreads in the town have moved into the former Steam Slums, or close by in the Dims. The author playfully suggests renaming it the Stem Slums.