War for the Crown with DM Vayelan

Game Master vayelan

Very excited for that, <3

Game on!

Happy New Year everyone!

Another dumpster fire of a year behind us! Congratulations everyone who has survived and intends to thrive in 2022! Happy New Year!

Glad you're feeling better, Vayelan! Hopefully, this new year is better than the last two. Low bar, but still!

As we start this new year, just remember this important advice.

Amen.

For the letter, I'm thinking something like alerting her to the tax collection and offering to split the take from stealing it after it's being taken out of Stachys.

If you supply her the information on its route, when it's being transported, and how it's guarded, and she steals it, you get 30% and she gets 70% or whatever.

Recovering some of it would be nice, but the real goal is to make the collectors and especially Lotheed look bad. He impoverishes the land with taxes, and since he can't offer a secure county in return, bandits just take the stuff and it's all lost anyway. After all, once Lotheed is out we can take it all back anyway.

I will do what I can. Im only allowed a small written note.

Just realize the nature of the message will indicate we know who she is…and she may think then that its a trap or just turn and hide for a while.

Yeah, I wish there was a better way to contact the Night Swan instead, but I've no idea how to.

If we can't find a way to contact the Night Swan that doesn't reveal us as knowing she's Lady Marthane, we could handle it in a couple of ways I can think of.

We could lean into letting her know, telling her if she does this for us her secret is safe. I'm confident she won't flip for Lotheed, everything we know about her says she hates him too much. But we doesn't seem the most stable type, and she might decide she needs to eliminate any possibility we'd talk, either before or after she pulls the heist. That would be a problem.

We could also offer her a fig leaf, sending the letter to Lady Marthane and telling her we think she might know who the Night Swan is. Which we reassure her is cool with us, bit could she pretty please deliver the message to the Night Swan since we don't know how to ourselves? The problem here is she would probably just deny it and do nothing. Or if she's crazy, deny everything and pull the heist anyway, which is fine.

OR, we could start with the second strategy, switching to the first one if our initial approach fails.

OR, we could just drop the Night Swan from our plans.

I know this is extremely helpful, but I'm good with whatever. Worst case, she hates us, which is where we're already at.

An idea:

How about we send her a set of coordinates and a date/time to intercept the tax man as you propose, but we give no qualifiers or info. No instructions. I kinda get the impression her simple curiosity (and ego) over the odd message could cause her to check the group out...and then she would perform the taxman 'heist' on her own once she realizes who they are and what they are doing. Dro'gan will simply be 'conveniently' nearby to help in her endeavor when she does it...

Can't hurt to try and see what happens.

=)

I like it!

Consider it done! GM? Let me know if u want me to roll anything to get the message to the Swan, and what I have to do to make sure the date/time/place we pick is as accurate as possible. Im using my magic Bird Feather Token to get the message to her.

I will not require a roll for this. Your strategy of playing to her curiosity and ego is cunning, and this ploy also touches upon the Night Swan's "deliberately provocative" nature, to quote her write up in the AP book.

Frankly, I'm impressed.

Thanks DM! That's high praise IMHO truthfully! I don't think I could ever have run this AP half as well as you have.

Its weird...I'm surprised and happy that I've been as successful with this character as I have been, despite a few rare odd points that have come up.

I usually prefer characters that deal damage or similar, than talk/puzzle/subtle characters. But I find Dro'gan to be quite fun AND interesting from a role-playing and writing standpoint that I never realized at first.

It probably helps that this AP is designed to let characters like mine shine in certain ways too. Possibly my age is showing and/or I'm just getting better at writing and character development?

Either way it might also help that I built the character based slightly on an Anime character I admired when we first started. (From: Record of Gancrest War See if you can guess which one!-Couldn't tell you his name to save my life right now however...)

On meeting the Swan again, I will be 'dressing up' as my former rando-burglar alter ego that met the Night Swan before, once we get around to seeing if she shows up for the Tax Collector's route like we suggest. (Whenever that happens).

Are we just trying to get her to help us, even if it is inadvertently/ accidentally? Or are we really trying to convert/convince her to our side of things?

I'm unsure how to do the latter to be honest.

I mean frankly all she needs to know about "our side" is that we're deposing Lotheed.

Right thing, wrong reason, etc.

I'm just worried her 'HATE ALL NOBILITY' side will get the better of us.

I'm thinking we simply use her hate by pointing it at the right targets, let her take the blame for those, and then dealing with her when the time is right. It would be much easier than trying to convince a incendiary revolutionary that even a 'decent' monarchy is better than a democracy.

I think just giving her the information without an explanation from us would be enough. Let her make of it what she will and act on how she chooses.

I don't think she'd come over as an ally. As far as we know he hates Amandine and has painted a target on her. Amandine might be a smaller fish than Lotheed, but she'd likely see them both as big fish in the pond who she'd like to see destroy one another.

As far as I can see it, the worst that happens if we just anonymously pass her the information is she doesn't bite and does nothing. That's not terrible for us.

It's hard to say how much personality Lady Marthane and the Night Swan share. Is it just a difference in clothing, two completely separate personalities, or something in between? But when we start whispering in ears around Meratt about opposing Lotheed, we could include Lady Marthane. Unless it's a bluff of some kind, she is apparently friendly.

We wouldn't need to her know about being aware she's the Night Swan. If Lady Marthane has any control over the Night Swan, we might get her aid that way. This wouldn't help with the tax collection thing now, but maybe it would be useful later.

GM, I neglected to prepare new spells since we were breaking the curse on Baron Telus. Would it be all right if I did that now, or just stick with the same set?

GM, I neglected to prepare new spells since we were breaking the curse on Baron Telus. Would it be all right if I did that now, or just stick with the same set?

Since it's been about three days since you've returned to Stachys from Baron Telus' manor, you can go ahead and prepare new spells.

Thanks. I didn't make any major changes, mostly just replacing the remove curse spells.

Posting this in all my games, so I apologize if you've seen it already.

I'm going through a difficult period right now with my mental health, and it's making it hard for me to keep up with my games on here. I am not planning to quit or anything, but I just need a day or two to kind of unplug from stuff so I can get myself back to where I can be a more active contributor. In the meantime, I ask for your patience, and I will be back soon.

I really appreciate everyone's patience. I'm doing a lot better and I'm ready to get back into it. Might take a minute to catch up but I am here.

Welcome back Meraki!

@Meraki and Greenly: In my post I said Amandine would be taking Lidia with her to Birdsong Palace, but we haven't heard from Lidia in a while now. Feel free to switch out in what you're doing if you like something else more.

Her player was active as recently as Feb 18, just not in our game.

I'll hold off on a gameplay post to see if Dro'gan's post changes things for Amandine when she gets there.

There's a couple of things I'm wondering about before I post in gameplay since they would make a difference.

How much of this are Lotheed's strung up tax collectors seeing and hearing of this?

Is Dro'gan still there when Amandine arrives?

Sorry I've been so slow with posting. Work is kicking my butt lately.

There's a couple of things I'm wondering about before I post in gameplay since they would make a difference.

How much of this are Lotheed's strung up tax collectors seeing and hearing of this?

Is Dro'gan still there when Amandine arrives?

Sorry I've been so slow with posting. Work is kicking my butt lately.

The tax collectors are unconscious while Dro'gan confronts the Night Swan, so they aren't seeing or hearing any of their conversation. Some of them will probably be conscious when Amandine arrives, though.

As for the second question, I suppose Dro'gan would have to answer that.

Hm. While Amandine did ask Lidia/Olivia to come with her to Songbird Palace, Lidia hasn't posted in the game for a long time now. How should we deal with this?

Should I go with a 'you just didn't see her but she's there' answer then?

Honestly, because Olivia/Lidia hadn't posted in a while, I forgot that she actually did accompany you. Oops.

I think their player is still active, but because of RL issues demanding their attention, they seem to be prioritizing the games they GM for.

I certainly don't want to put any pressure on their player, but I'm very loathe to retire Olivia because of her great dynamic with Amandine (and how she is now tied to the Duchess Veleto plot hook).

Sorry for the radio silence, everyone. I got very, very sick and was not up to doing much of anything.

No problems. It happens to everyone at one point or another.

=)

Sorry I've been so slow to post lately. RL keeps throwing things at the last few weeks.

I can relate!

Remind me, Meraki and I are waiting on envoys from the Beggarwood but why?

Another question: where are we at in terms of party wealth? I'd like to make some scrolls for us, but I barely have enough gold to buy myself a couple of CLW potions.

I can give you a potion of Potion (CLW) 1d8+1 if you need it.

I actually holding onto a Wand of CLW (!d8+1) for the group too if you need direct healing as well. (The idea was since I have the spell in my list and can use the wand, it might be best if I use it in case we need to heal the 'healers' of the group!)

Also, we have spent a lot of our spare money on improving the district. Personal gain (gold) has been minor since I started, although I do have a nifty magical spear now!
=)

I know I have plans for upgrading Dro'gan. I would love to find or buy Gloves of Storing (Basically for the aforementioned spear!) as well as replace his 'bird' Feather Token. + other things like that. I'm sure we all have things... we want. We just have to wait until the game gives us the chance to earn them. Right now all is mostly intrigue and politics. I'm guessing the real money lies in the future once we get in the higher levels 7-9? But that is just a guess.

Thanks to this reminder, I took some time to actually updated the loot log to reflect what you acquired from the pump house and the wand you were given for rescuing Festo Mise.

I didn't include any treasure from Baron Telus' manor since, I believe, you decided to leave everything to him so he could begin rebuilding the barony. However, I may have him deliver certain magic treasures in the near future as a way to thank you for all you've done.

Thanks, Vayelan! Question: do bracers of armor count as armor for the purposes of my archetype's armor restriction?

Dro'gan, I'm not worried about healing necessarily, it was just an example. I mean more for things like remove blindness/deafness, spells that aren't necessarily worth preparing every day but are definitely things you want to have in your back pocket. That one in particular is a good one since it's not dependent on caster level. Or I can make some scrolls of hideous laughter for you to use, since they'll use my DC instead of yours (or the minimum's).

I'd still like a reminder please as to why we're waiting on the Beggarwood folks to show up?

@Meraki: After doing some research, I've found people interpreting the rules either way.

I'm inclined to rule that you can wear bracers of armor without violating the Ecclesitheurge's Vow because they are not actually armor, even though they provide an armor bonus.

...

@Greenly: I was also hoping for a reminder because I was having trouble remembering.

Looking for the last mentions of the Beggarwood when looking back through our Gameplay and Discussion posts, it seems like the party was planning to recruit them and put them to work around Stachys and maybe use them as scouts or spies against the count.

Oh super fun, both Meraki and I should have a chance to shine in that encounter too. Thank you for searching for it, idk why that didn't occur to me, apologies for making you do the work for me

Oh super fun, both Meraki and I should have a chance to shine in that encounter too. Thank you for searching for it, idk why that didn't occur to me, apologies for making you do the work for me

No worries. Since I couldn't remember either, looking it up helped me, too.

Once again I'm very sorry it's taking me so long to get posts up. Both April and early May have been just overwhelming. My workload is up and we transitioned back to working in the office part time. Since I work for the state and all such changes happen at all state offices it was a big change with many, many meetings and emails involved. On top of that many federal rules changed at the start of may as Covid-19 policies and procedures are replaced with 2+ year old versions from before. That meant many more meetings and emails.

Meetings would sometimes run so long over their scheduled slots they would completely swallow the meetings scheduled behind them, which would then have to be rescheduled. With all this going on we also still had our regular work to get done somehow. I also had a pet die. It's been a lot.

I think I'm mostly in the clear now with work and things will be returning to normal again. I'll be catching up on gameplay over the two or three days.

I hope I haven't been too much trouble to wait for.