Way of the Wicked (Inactive)

Game Master Aku Warashi

Ok, if we execute my plan, my vote is for Sourat to be guarding the road towards Aldencross, picking off any messengers that might try to get out during our assault.

That keeps him out of the fight proper, but still has him involved.

Also, it means that no one, technically, has to play him.

Good plan.

As for our next step, I think it would be good to keep things low-profile for a few days. Our goals are best served by piling up as much catastrophe into one day at the end as we possibly can.

Can we do some theft or some sabatage? Maybe frame the dwarves? Things that won't be immediately obvious?

The biggest issue with waiting is that Mama Guisseppe only does her stew once a week, so if we want to effectively poison their food, it has to happen tomorrow. If we wait for the next stew event, then it is the same problem as waiting for Sakkarot.

If we leave the inn intact, that night, right before we breach the tower, we could let Mysty sneak out disguised as a Dwarf and start a bunch of fires. It may distract more soldiers, and the townsfolk might start a manhunt looking for the dwarves outside the fortress.

If that is the last time we expect to leave, we could also burn down the inn when Mysty returns from her arson, which may make everyone think that we died in the fire, further laxing the fortress's wariness against something more human looking.

Only reason I spread it out... This is a fort that never has been breached before. I expect every major fight to be full taxing on us. I don't think our magical reserves will handle storming this place as 6 people. Let them know something is up frankly by the end, we all have magical disguises that we can use at will, they still won't know it's us if we play it right, they'll just know they are under attack by 6 burly men or something. If we try and do this in a night I'm extremely concerned that we will get stuck low on health, spells, and healing and end up tpk'd. We've also all assumed that it is just the soldier protecting this place... Just throwing up the possibility that perhaps there could be other divine protection/traps that we won't know about till we are in there, this is a holy fort for Mitra after all.

I agree we need to take out rookery first night, and anything else opportune as well. We could send messenger (Sourat) to Sakkorat that it's going down in less then a week and have him patrol the roads out of Aldencross for ground carriers, have his massive army pounce on any messengers. Anything by ship will take too long, so we've basically isolated the town from everyone. Regardless we have a secret entrance into the fort and great disguises, I just don't think it's a good idea nor do we have to try and do this all at once.

My issue with trying to keep up intrigue before assaulting the fortress is twofold:

1) They should be expecting the patrols return soon. That, combined with the issues between Eddarly and Mott are believable, but too much more is going to make them suspicious, possibly about a traitor in their midst. Tensions should have been high before we ever arrived, with the escape from Brandescar and the rumors of gathering evil.

2) If I were running that tower, I would send a message via bird as soon as anything seemed up: one of those "if you don't hear back in a few days send someone to investigate" deals. So it seems to me that it would be better to take out the Rookery while they are still completely unaware, but that obviously shows that they are under attack.

- - - - -

Your plan assumes that we are trusted, but we are strangers that showed up out of nowhere, right before things started going wrong, and who went on a 'picnic' around the same time as the patrol that Varning never came back from. I think it is just as likely that they would lock us up as being suspicious half way through. Innocent until proven guilty isn't exactly a thing yet.

- - - - -

Your plan has us setting up the murder of Bellam Barhold, Father Donnaigan, and maybe a hand full of soldiers before assaulting the tower proper.

When you said Bellam Barhold, did you mean Samuel Barhold? Because Bellam won't even be in the fortress and has no real strategic power in this situation, beyond knowing about the tunnels. And we can bar the door from our side. And we would still have to take out Samuel.

- - - - -

The poison we get is probably not going to kill very many people. But it could weaken a lot of people, and it will throw the fortress into a fit of trying to figure out how to care for so many sick all at once, plus them trying to figure out what happened. As Rose said, if we don't take advantage of that distraction for something then I think we are missing a big opportunity.

And while you mentioned assaulting the tower for the Magister, you also said killing people and trying to keep the obvious casualties down. I don't exactly see how they aren't going to notice men killed by violence. And if they do, they are going to lock up the place and send a bird, or messengers, or worse, soldiers to mention that they are under attack.

- - - - -

And while Sourat may be able to take out messengers, if things start looking very rough they may decide to send a mounted squad of soldiers while we rest. And if they do that then we're hosed again.

- - - - -

Anyway, this is going to be rough no matter how we do it. But if they get to call for reinforcements, it forces us to try and do everything all at once, without any planning or surprise. Personally, I'd rather us be the ones setting up the circumstances of our attack, instead of having to react to what they do. Because setting up the circumstances of our attack is the only advantage we have here. And the more we try to be tricky and draw this out, the more likely that we will have to drop everything when they come for us.

- - - - -

Also, reading back over this, I hope it doesn't come off offensive (or defensive). I'm just trying to explain my concerns for a long term plan at this point.

Guess poisoning the stew has to happen tomorrow.

Once everyone gets sick, they are going to send for aid. So we should kill the ravens and Mad Martin tomorrow also. That will force them to send someone on foot (which will take too long for help to come in time).

At that point they will know something is up.

I think we should pin it all on the dwarves (they're the other "outsiders" in town). A little planted evidence should be enough.

No I meant poisoning Bellam. If you were a high ranking captain and you're brother got poisoned, wouldn't you go investigate. It's a way to get Samuel out of the watchtower and potentially in a situation where we could ambush him.

and send Sourat to Fire-Axe.... we have an army literally waiting just outside the town... why not use them to block all the land entrances before the attack.

Because the main land entrance is on the other side of the wall.

This isn't a castle that can be surrounded. It's a fortress built into an enormous wall.

The tower is more a gate, than a fortress.

Fair enough. Alright so I guess everyone wants to do this in one massive go. Sounds like a plan.

Well, we haven't heard from Troost or Fausto yet.

@Troost, @Fausto, what do you guys think?

It's not so much that I *want* to do it in one massive go, it's just that I'm worried about losing the element of surprise if our body count gets too high before our final assault.

Martin definitely needs to die before our assault. Im worried that people will start getting paranoid when that happens just because at that point four people will be dead in a week. That means we need to use that possibility to our advantage.

My thought is, if we plant maps of the tower, diagrams of their guard rotations, the formula for the poison we use in the stew, a layout of the ranger captain's favorite clearing, and a few other incriminating documents in the dwarves rooms we can essentially do as much as we want and have a group of patsies to take the heat for us. We could do just about everything on your list all at once early on the week, using the poisoning as cover. Then, the next day we get the dwarves caught.

Then the remaining captain has to deal with interrogating a whole bunch of people (because he wouldn't be sure if all of them are bad, or only a few) and trying run the whole garrison himself.

They'd beef up the guard, expecting an attack, but because so many people would be sick it would just wear out the people who managed to avoid getting sick. After a week of running double shifts on a skeleton crew the guard will be useless, but starting to figure that they stopped whatever attack might have been coming because they caught the dwarves.

Then when we hit them they'll be strung out and surprised.

So basically I want to do pretty much everything on your list on Monday and Tuesday night, get the dwarves caught for it on Wednesday and then sit back and relax.

Also, I think we should add robbing the magic shop to the list. Planting everything we don't need with the dwarves stuff will make it more credible and easier to find (with detect magic).

In character, Troost wants to please Lady Rose.

Out if character, I haven't had any time to give it much thought. I had a work function yesterday evening and I'm still dealing with my appliance apocalypse. It looks like there's enough water damage that we have to tackle an entire kitchen reno. I don't want to drop the game but I would understand if you guys preferred me to. If it's ok, I'd like to keep on in a fairly passive role--boss Troost around all you like and he will do as he's told. I think this suits his personality well. He is not a leader but rather a tool to be used to serve Asmodeus' purpose and vision.

Hope that's ok.

D'aw, my very first minion!

Fausto still wants to try and deceive the 'Good Father' with a letter summoning him away for a few days.

He figures that it's very low risk and there's no skin lost if it doesn't work. he needs someone with the proper skill to write the letter but can guide him/her as to what to say in it (knowledge religion at a +7).

Other than that, he is overwhelmed with the whole planning ordeal as his past missions have been very much focused on taking out one particular person at a time.

He made a decent team at being stealthy with Mysty in the past and will volunteer to go with her again.

He is 'awed' by the careful planning going on and thanks the Dark Lord for putting him in such fine company.

He thinks that it will domino pretty quickly once we get into the tower proper.

There's a new roll in the planning Sheet for you to write down what'll happen and what day you want it to happen.
As soon you fill it, we begin the ‘tower burning operation’

Okay, time for decision has come.

You still did not have any ‘direct’ conflict with any high ranking office from the watchtower.
Ryan was not a good ‘example’ to relay on, for several circumstances, the biggest one was he did not have opportunity to do anything.

With your current group:
Killing one Captain: Fairly easy. They are strong, but with team and organization, I doubt one alone would be able to offer any real danger of the entire party.
Killing one Captain, plus Soldiers: Now thing begin to get a bit more straining. But still, it should be easy to deal. But it will be more taxing on our resources. Some danger to the party, but nothing extreme.
killing one Captain, plus soldiers, plus the Priest: Now shit hit the fan, and everyone else get dirty. Once you dispose of the priest, it should be easy to accomplish the defeat of the others, the problem being: How to kill the priest?
killing one Captain, plus soldiers, plus the Priest, plus the Magister: My advice? Retreat. Heroes are those who did not had time to flee. Are you heroes?
killing one Captain, plus soldiers, plus the Priest, plus the Magister, plus the Lord. My advice? Pray. And pray hard.

I just want you to know that, there’s a reason why the fort has not fallen by brute force before.
If you try this using brute force, you’d better be prepared to deal with the response from them.

Just for you to have a better understanding and plan better:
Killing one captain: 2 VP
Killing the Priest: 3 VP
Killing the Magister: 4 VP
Killing the Lord: 5 VP

If we're getting that kind of warning, then I think that we should go with the more drawn out plan. My concerns are all still there, but if DM Aku wasn't concerned, then he wouldn't have said anything.

So yeah, my vote is Seren's Plan.

If we follow that plan we will lose suprise. Taking the fort by suprise is MOST important. At some point we have to fight. Fighting on our terms is what we want.
Important facts. It takes a lot of time to armor up. The lord, priest and others will need to wake up, work out what is happening, and then equip. As long as they do not know what is happening, that will hamper them. By us moving quickly inside their defences we can kill the in isolation. As a group we can take any one person at the fort.
Remember our ace in the hole is the secret entrance. If we use it for repeated attacks, they will most probably locate it. We cannot assume they will act foolishly.
We must use our assets, such as silence and darkness spells from our cleric, to surprise strikes from mysty. It is risky, but it is better if we have the initiative in this. Invisibility would be good, if we have access to it (not sure of that).

Well, it’s not like I’m really concerned.
But it seemed you wanted to fight the entire fort at the same time. That’s what I’m warning against. The more you pile against you, harder it will get.
My concern it the same as Seren: In a long ‘battle’, you’ll be drained of resources. That will likely put you into a very dangerous situation.

And No, I’m not saying Seren plan is better. But from what I understood of Nahia’s plan, it just seemed way more daring, and dangerous.

I agree with Mysty. You’ll, most likely, be able to win against any single challenge there. The watchtower is the same as your own group: Alone, you are easy to deal with. Put everyone together, and it’s get really complicated. Not because of individual power, but because of tactical alternatives to cope with challenges.

Anyway, I liked your plans so far.
There are dangers involved. But then again, this was a ‘suicidal’ mission from the very start!

I’m sure you’ll be able to adjust for any situation, no matter what plan you choose to follow.

P.S: Btw Nahia, do you liked my new classes? :D

I want to be a holy (unholy) assasin.

My view is we can surprise the fort all we want... it's still a massive fort and we are 6 people, we will not clear it in one go. We try to and all we do is get surrounded and killed. Best to play the cat and mouse game, be the mouse and go and kill a few and retreat back to our hole. And you can be sure a last stand fort like this will have surprises of some sort that will be used just in the case of a breach. I doubt they don't have a fallback measure of some sort.

Regardless, They'll know that something is up eventually, but it'll likely take a couple of days to find our little entrance, and again we all have wicked amazing disguise making devices, so they'll never be able to pin it directly on us, they may suspect, but a lot harder to prove.

Especially if we leave one person alive on say the 3rd night that can give a perfect description of the assailants, a description perhaps that looks exactly like one of the dwarves, on the same day that Bellam dies, where another dwarf was also seen at the Inn... Then we take the next day off after the dwarves are all captured. Let the remaining captains congratulate themselves on successfully finding the perpetrators, and drop their guard again.

Then we finish it up quickly after that.

Hey, how are you guys,
I will have a very busy week. I will try checking the game every day, but if you do not hear from me, don’t, you know.
:)

So, do we have a schedule?

Sweet! DM Aku, do you also get to turn into an Ultima Demon when you die?

(Ok, nerdy reference out of the way)

I elect Seren to fill in the plan stages. She was the first to put forth a plan and she has heard all of our arguments at this point.

No Ultima demon.

I took pains to retrain my commoner classes.

Seren, that's a great idea. Satisfies my desire for a fall guy and gives us back the element of surprise once the dwarves get fingered for everything.

I think we will still want to plant some evidence in their rooms for when the guards show up.

I still think it is too slow. But if that is the way the party wants to go, so be it.
Mysty will have misgivings, but she is lawful, so she'll follow the group.

As long as she can burn things.

Okay so plan based on the advice from everyone else.

Moonday: Poison Everyone. Moonday Night, Venture into Fort, start wrecking some havoc.

PRIORITY: TAKE OUT ROOKERY.

Shifts should be extremely shortstaffed, due to poison, arsenic and magic to kill what we can, try and minimize obvious casualties from fighting, hide obvious kills in tunnel, Goal here is to be stealthy, but still remove the option for them to send birds out. Watchtower is fairly isolated so any ground based communication will just take too much time to turn around with reinforcements.

Toilday: Take out any opportune targets that won't raise suspicion. Likely Magister is best option, as he's been known to spend multiple days locked in his workshop, people should still be sick from poison so further deaths to guards may not be to surprising.

Wealday: Assault tower in Dwarf Disguise. (Disguise Self can let you alter your height by upto a foot, should put us reasonably close in size to the dwarves to negate casual inspection).

Priority: Kill Lord or Father.

Secondary: Break Ballista that dwarves are working on. Make it look like they've crippled the tower defenses they were working on.

If we can take the tower totally out, Great!

If we cannot clear the tower, we retreat, and kill Bellam Barhold, plant evidence on dwarves. let the Dwarves take the blame. Killing Bellam in hopes that his brother get mad and leads the arrest in person.

BONUS: Cause havoc during the arrest, see if we can get the Dwarves and the arresting captain/guards to start fighting. Should result in Dwarves out of commission, plus some dead guards, who knows may even end up in a dead captain!.

Oathday: Day off, potentially take out opportune targets that will raise 0 suspicion, thinking secondary defenses we found during first night in (such as arrow stores, oil cauldrons, etc.). This day is mostly Preparation. Healing Scrolls, Potions, Everything we may need for final charge, enough has happened by this point for us to just play scared and preparing ourselves for this unknown assailant.

Fireday: Mysty can play Arsonist in town today (figured it was the best day for it :)). Take out important buildings, and have a good time. We enter tower for final assault.

Take out the priority targets within watchtower that may still be alive. Today removes the element of surprise and stealth will be gone at this point. Need to make this one count and cripple as much as possible, can still likely retreat into the tunnel, and recoup (as it was an absolute pain for us to find, and even just a moderate hiding job should keep it undiscovered hopefully, as it hasn't been found in the tower yet and it's been there for years).

Starday: At this point s++&'s going to be hitting the fan I imagine. Do complete raid of Tower, Killing whatever we can, clear the tower here, High Priority to Any of the remaining high priority targets. If we've routed priority targets, then spend some time to get secondary targets, cripple defenses, etc. This point, we have the decision to try and retreat again if we've failed in any of the tasks, or to light the rocket and start the charge.

That's my plan. If anyone has any slight alterations feel free to suggest them.

Okay!

Let us get back to our 1/day posting rate minimum then. :)

Am I sneaky enough to join you on this mission, Mysty?

Guess you should just say you go too.

It's exciting to see so many posts going by in the gameplay thread again!

And Seren, I'd be back at the inn as well. I'm not stealthy...

@Meanwhile, in a not so far away bugbear army camp...

The night was cold; the wind howling in his ears… sweat covered his entire body. His arms and face and legs had several small cuts, he acquired along his blindly run thought the forest.

He did now know that fear could be so strong and palpable. Dammed time he agreed with this ‘courage’ lesson. If they caught him, he was dead for sure. No one here to protect him beside his ‘protector’, his ‘protector’ however might be the first one to kill him if he were caught…

And so he ran his life depending on that. From some distance behind, he could hear their bestial and savage howls. The excited and murderous sounds they made just before eating their prey…

”YOU CAN RUN, BUT YOU CAN’T HIDE FROM JACK, ‘UN!” a powerful voice sounded in the night.

”shit, shit, shit” Timeon said as he ran, faster than before now.
It was not fair, Grumblejack was supposed to protect him, not to hunt him!

Grumble! gods I've missed that guy. Party just isn't the same without our Ogre.

Aw... I want an ogre!

There's enough Big'un to share!

@Rose.

I'll answer your post a bit later.

I'm ashamed to say I'm struggling with the soldier answer. :P

I'll take a nap first.

No problem.

Honestly, I'm fine with that scene not being the main focus. It can be handled with dice rolls, with a description of the aftermath informing the actual events. It isn't really necessary to see a bomb drop, or even the explosion. Sometimes all you need to see is the crater.

Rose's plan is to talk about how horrible Eddarly was for not respecting another Nan's marriage, ramping it up until she says she thinks he got what he deserved and that Eddarly should be praised for ridding the world of such an honorless scoundrel (all where his men can hear), provoking them into a confrontation.

Rose's soldier will have no choice but to defend her honor, various friends will get involved, and voila! Giant bar fight. :)

I'm pretty sure it's not a question of whether she can do it, but more of how bad it will get before it is broken up.

Why do the dice hate me?

I am very sorry but I have to withdraw from the game. This renovation in the aftermath of the appliance problem has become a full time job. Even now I am heading out to look at flooring. I just don't have the free time anymore and it's likely to be this way for a couple of months at least.

Thank you for having me.

Damn. Look for a new player?

best of luck troost

Sorry to see you go Troost.

Guess it's just the ladies again. (Fousto is an honorary lady)

If we want a replacement I know a reliable fellow from my previous game who would love to reprise his character. He's been lurking our game for a while.

@Troost.

Well, sorry to see you go. But thanks for your time with us. :)

@Rose

I don't mind inviting other player. But I think the final decision belog to you guys. If you want to invite another person, I'm fine with it.

Hello there, I played with Lady Rose briefly in cosimy's WoTW game before he vanished and the current stats are for a different game

Hound is an axe-man, a hammer. He breaks bones,rends flesh and explodes organs. As per Rose's suggestion, I can make him a bit sneaky.

Hound could be in the employ of Thorn and thus now Rose somewhat on a professional basis and be sent in to help support the group.

edit:here is his background.

Aku, I am a little confused. What is the game rule on rolls. I seem to be wrong footing myself a bit, sorry about that. I think I am not certain when to roll.

Not that I am complaining about the result.

Game rules are:

Perception(all of then).
Bluff.
Sense Motive.
Appraise.
Stealth.

Out of combat, will be rolled in secret my the DM.
When in combat, all rolls are made open.

For this sneaking part, I told you guys to make your own rolls.

For the shopkeeper scene, I rolled because there was no need to call off a 'combat' for that encounter.

I did not waited you to roll, beucase you would kill him next attack. So there was no real reason to delay the entire scene for one or two days while you killed the shopkeeper, since your goal was to get the poison.

In some times, I may handwave the combat if the result is obivious.

Please tell me if there's any other confusion. I'll try my best to explain. :)

@Hound.

Hello!

As I've said to Rose, Let's hear from the others, if they want a new player. :)

As the one introducing Hound I will be abstaining from the vote.

Hound, you'll have to seduce the rest of them on your own. I hear they take bribes. Good luck.