Way of the Wicked - the Fall of Andoran (Inactive)

Game Master increddibelly

Ditto.

The surprise round is over, so let's see:
round 1, Kargeld is finished; Aerent and the helmsman have had their turns.

The sailors will continue their infighting for now, but it's 3 drunks against Arryn's 2 friends, who are clearly defending themselves - expecting a little help from you.

IMHO, the current issue is that of the helmsman, who will recover from his spell, now that Sindran's command has been executed - puns intended.

I do find it rather annoying that the spell isn't more descriptive with regard to what happens to the subject after the spell expires. I'm going to houserule that that the subject is Shaken(condition) after murderous command expires, as he realises what he has just done, and hostile vs. the caster. If you disagree or have input, do share :)

Personally, I think it's enough that the target used his attack to go after his allies. For a low-level spell, anything else would be OP, in my opinion.

Huh I never thought of that. I had a cleric of Zon-Kuthon that was quite the fan of that spell, but ya that makes a lot of sense

Sorry, had a hellishly busy few days... I'll be able to post more over the long weekend. I'll be like this until May, when my course ends.

Personally, I think it's enough that the target used his attack to go after his allies. For a low-level spell, anything else would be OP, in my opinion.

Yeah, that's probably exactly why they don't say anything about it. We'll have to fudge it somehow so that it makes sense.

I think depending on what they've done, they could possibly get the condition if they were affected enough by their actions. I'd say beheading your captain whom you are loyal to is enough to get them shaken, as opposed to, say, punching someone in the face or not even hitting the person you are attacking. While they may be regretful in those cases, they won't be shaken and rationalize their actions were affected by the spell.

*nods*
I guess it's more fun if we keep the rules as they are - not overpowered, and plenty of room to create a story.

I'll give a +1 lame joke (morale) bonus to anyone who finds an easter egg this weekend. That said, I probably won't post much. See you guys on Tuesday, as you start taking over the Fortress Balentyne? That chapter is the most spectacular bit of the first book, and you'll probaby be at level 6 by the end of it - so you see, there's a lot of Evil Work to be done ;)

Sweet... level 5 is when things get fun for Caladwhen; Animate Dead is what the Necromancer is all about.

level 5 is when things get fun for Caladwhen;

oh dear gods have mercy on us all...

Looking forward to that fortress! *evil laughter*

I'm not going to find an easter egg, but how 'bout a book? (There's a book hunt going on, but sadly no easter eggs.)

Indeed, LOTS of freedom here.

You have one month, 30 days, to complete your task. Then, the Fire-Axe's army will start to fall apart, and your chance of success decreases by the hour.

There's a lot of information to take in, even more things to do. I suggest you take some time to gather leads, then focus on scheduling the events that 1) have larger impact or 2) requires two or more of you to work together or 3) take several days.
I also recommend that your characters meet each other at least once a week, if only to share information, or work on scheduling an event together.

Regarding that schedule, I'm sending you all a link with a google docs spreadsheet, where you can edit your plans. The green row indicates 'today', and as people fill up their personal schedules, we will resolve the events in the Gameplay thread, and move the green row ahead.

This probably sounds more difficult than it is. just have a look, and feel free to put any ideas you may have under your name on the calendar.

I've read through the posts and looked over the google sheet. I've got lots of questions and ideas, but I'm kind of tight on time today. A few questions now, then I'll post something more comprehensive this evening.

1. Are there any churches in town?
2. Are the smiths able to make masterwork items (arms & armor)?
3. Do the dwarven workers stay inside the watchtower?

1. There are a few temples spread over town; most are dedicated to Sarenrae(The Shining Lady), Erastil(Family), Shelyn(Defense). The Elven god Ketephys(Hunt) also has a beautiful shrine in the woods just out of town.

The major center of worship to Sarenrae is the Choir Hall in the fortress Balentyne, which is open to the public on sundays.

2. Masterwork items are available. The one or two smithies whom draw your interest seem quite interested to work for you. Most of their commissions are for the army, requiring quantity rather than quality.

3. No. The innkeep (Bellam Barhold) complains quite fiercely about them during the days (but he's kind to them in the evenings), and I quote "There is no space for them in the watchtower, so the dwarves are being quartered in the Lord’s Dalliance Inn. Six days a week at first light, they wake, eat breakfast and trudge up the hill to the watchtower for a hard day’s work. At night, they return to the Inn to eat, drink an unprecedented amount of ale, chat in dwarven about Sarenrae knows what, and play dwarven card games no one else in town understands. And on the seventh day – they just skip straight to the drinking. Pah, this is what passes for a dwarven religious ceremony."

I think we've got two main objectives: 1. people we should kill and/or get out of the way, and 2. sabotaging the physical structure of the watchtower.

People
Important NPCs we should definitely kill/incapacitate:
Lord Thomas Havelyn
Captain ?? Varning
Captain Franz Mott
Captain Zack Eddarly
Mad Martin (raven guy)
Tacitus (wizard)
Father Donnagin
Barnabus Eisenbauch (dwarf leader)

There may be more added to this list, but this is all we know about.

I'm guessing we'll have to kill Havelyn, Martin, Tacitus, and Donnagin inside the watchtower since they aren't known to leave.

Varning could be killed when he and his men go on patrol

I'm thinking Mott and Eddarly might be set up in a love triangle with Mott's wife. The "young dashing gallant knight" of Eddarly just fits too well with the "lonely beautiful damsel" image of Kaitlyn for me. Aerent is totally into tempting them into something.

The dwarf needs to die so his men can't finish working on the tower. Perhaps he could be goaded into a fight during a drinking content?

Sabotage
I'm thinking that since the dwarf and his men are staying at the Inn, they might have blueprints or plans we could steal. That would give us a huge advantage.

We know we have to "throw the gate open" which likely means give the bugbears and easy route into the main watchtower. So I'm thinking we should focus on the gatehouse first to make sure they can't pull up the drawbridge, dump boiling oil on the invaders, etc. Basically, make sure the front doors are open and disable any traps they might have.

Another option is to kill the ravens so they can't call for help. That might be done while Martin is in there so we kill two .... birds with one stone. Sorry for the pun. :)

Other Fun Stuff
I think we should plan most of our murders and the invasion for the night of the play. That doesn't give us much time, but I'm guessing that most of the men will be in the hall to watch the show, so we might be able to use that to our advantage. If we could figure out some way to have a huge accident, we could take out a big number of troops as well as signal the bugbears. Couple that with killing a bunch of the leaders, might make this whole invasion thing a cakewalk.

-----

DM, Thorne wants to go walk around Aldencross mainly to see how people get into and out of the tower. He is trying to find out if the watchtower typically has servants and deliveries coming and going throughout the day, or just at certain times.

Also just to confirm, the size of Aldencross means that all magic items up to 1,000 gp value is readily available, with some additional random items. Are you planning to roll for some random items, or should we just assume the 1,000 gp limit items are what the market has?

(As a side note, I think everybody gets 1,148 gp from the treasure on the ship - that includes selling all the equipment, but we keep the six bottles of whiskey. Might come in handy - maybe poison the whiskey then give it to the dwarves?)

Thorne also wants to meet the alchemist and inquire about a couple of items: poison for "vermin" like rats and rabbits, and a "love potion" to play a trick on a friend.

1d20 ⇒ 11
1d20 ⇒ 16
1d20 ⇒ 9

Here are a few d20 rolls if needed; Aerent's Bluff and Diplomacy are both currently +9 if needed. Perception is +6.

Aerent is totally into tempting them into something.

Sounds like we'll have great fun at their expense. Since you mentioned walking around town, observing the day to day business, you should be able to find some leads within the first couple of days.

Thorne

is that the name of your disguise?

Aerent Sephim wrote:

Thorne

is that the name of your disguise?

Yes, I posted a description in the IC thread. I thought it a fitting name. :)

Do I need to make more rolls for the leads you mention, or did I provide enough?

I see it now - your post didn't show up before I sent my long one :)

Your rolls are fine :)
There's no threat (yet...) and the game will grind to a halt if you guys don't get any information. The level of information you'll be getting depends more on how clever your idea is, than on a single roll.

Well, the first course of action would be to find out as much as possible about the three of them. Do they ever leave the watchtower and visit Aldencross. Do they ever drink at the Inn? Are the two Captains friends, rivals? Does Kaitlyn act like a demure wife, or is she something of a scandal around town?

Not sure how long getting that would take, but those are the kind of details I'd need to actually figure out something resembling a plan.

Oh wow, sorry for the huge silence... crazy week. Parent teacher interviews, field trips, nuts.

Anyway, going to do a major post either tonight or tomorrow afternoon. Again, apologies.

I'm going to get that Wand of Cure Light Wounds (when I meet the Father tomorrow). That's a good plan, Aerent, and very nice summary.

I definitely want blueprints or a layout of the Watch Wall. I also want to look into hiring some . . . unscrupulous men. I don't expect much since the guard is abundant in town, but perhaps there's a black market or poisoner somewhere? I have to make a note to look into the shiftier side of things in town.

Cala, the benefit of the first phase in Aldencross, is that everyone can pretty much do stuff on their own, in their own time.

Please do read up on what everyone else is doing; It's helpful if you have some degree of track on the progress of the mission as a whole, so that the story doesn't get too fragmented.

Are we staying together at the inn as a group who know one another? If so, perhaps our story is that we met on the road while heading toward Aldencross?

That would be good. We'd say we have traveled with each other for a while.

that's a good idea. I was wondering how you'd make sense of coming in together. Hell, it's not even a lie.

I'll get busy on everyone's personal 'thread' now :)

Well, the best lies are vague, half-truthful, and not easily checked. =]

Sindran says: It's one thing to deceive, another to lie completely. I'll give you one guess which works better.

Totally not planning vengeance or anything on that sheriff. Nope.

I've had some great friends over this weekend, but not as much time for you as I'd liked. However, for the next 90 minutes, I'm all yours.
Talon and Oret are first, then the more recent posts.

It saddens me to see that you've all turned honest - everyone seems to be looking for a j o b?!? ;p

The community is proud, and confident in the defensive capabilities of the good men in Balentyne; and, as they see no danger, very trusting. If you keep your cool, there's a chance your plan won't utterly fail.

oh don't worry, i plan on adding my own secret ingredient...a lot easier to take over when half the guards drop dead from eating lunch

That might work. You should plan on creating sufficient of said ingredient - and soon you'll be able to find out how much 'sufficient' is exactly.

according to the planning, next up is Oret. but no - real life broke in. next up, little ones. BRB.

I'll give a little tip: How's your dwarven, Oret? [evil grin]

although im not much of a poison expert (in game or out) so i'll need some help for that

Erm, yeah - that's one detail I sorta missed. Whoops.

Cala - is it perhaps possible that you've entered your plans into Arryn's column by accident? I've gone ahead and moved them over to yours.

Also, you may have noticed the background colors :

• dark green = your next event, feel free to edit
  
• light green = this has already happened. Any changes you make to a light green field will not be used in the game.
  
• yellow = This is the next square that will be used in the game :) Any edits are probably too late but you can still try.
  

Real sorry guys, I know this is a very important part of the campaign, and I'm really sorry, but I'll be gone until Saturday, maybe one post in between, then I'll be good.

Oret - we should figure out how your predicament with the dwarves concludes. Have you figured out something to do? Cala may help in figuring out the rules for you, by watching the game from a distance; it would make sense that you two would've already observed the dwarves before Oret headed over to ask them a favor, so I'm happy to fudge this a little bit.

Let's look ahead at day 2 of your mission:

• Aerent - do you have an idea where / how you want to look for clues regarding the love triangle? I have some info, but I need a hook.
  
• Arryn - I'll let you investigate the *spoiler thingy* unless you suddenly do appear and post stuff of your own.
  
• Caladwhen - what happened with your draugr, anyway? Have you been to the cemetery yet? the flowers are stunningly beautiful this time of year, if you're into that sort of thing.
  
• Sindran - You said you'll be looking for good father Donnagin; I've got you covered.
  
• Oret - depends on how we fix the language barrier with the dwarves. A good lie perhaps? or will you trust that they'd take any dwarf over a human, no matter how ignorant?
  
• Talon - you've got a job, son! I'm sorry, but I'm going to enjoy one of my villains doing actual work for a little while. However, it won't entirely suck, I promise };->
  

You know, I was just thinking what I might have done with the Draugr. Probably the best thing would be to park them in a crypt in the cemetery on a particularly dark night.

Also, I probably did put it in the wrong column.

I just realized I still owe Aerent some information from yonder post. Which I should add is an excellent summary of the situation. Sindran may be the face, Caladwhen may be the brain, but Aerent is clearly the military strategist of your operation. I salute you :)

The town has several folks capable of creating magic items and 1st / 2nd level spells. They will take orders for anything they can produce, which is indeed limited to around a 1000gp. With materials readily available, most magic items in this range will just take 8h / 1 day to be produced.

All of the craftsmen in town will allow you to come in during the day and view progress on your orders, and allow you to customize the design.
I'll go with Aerent's count of 1,148 GP each.

Aerent - do you have an idea where / how you want to look for clues regarding the love triangle? I have some info, but I need a hook.

What I would like to do is try to find Kaitlyn to at least see what she looks like. Later, I would ask the bartender about the "lovely lass", trying to find out if she would be interested in some "friendly male company".

He would also mention seeing a handsome guard captain looking at her, and Thorne/Aerent would mention it "just to make sure he's not interrupting something". Totally a lie, but hopefully the innkeeper will buy it. If nothing else, it sets up another possible solution (murdering them both in a compromising situation!) with the innkeeper as a second-hand witness.

Basically, the idea is to find out if she's able to be used in this little scheme. If she's a housewife who never ventures outside and never lets anybody in except her husband, then this plan won't work. But if she's not, then this might have a chance of succeeding. >:)

Diplomacy to ask the questions delicately?: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (20) + 9 = 29
Bluff to lie about seeing the captain looking at her?: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (16) + 9 = 25

Great, aerent! That's a perfect hook for me :D

Awesome. I'm after a Wand of Cure Light Wounds so I'll be bringing that up when I meet Father Donnagin on my second day.

And increddibelly, glad to hear 'bout those great friends. *grins*

All, is there some spell that can make copies of something on another piece of paper? That seems like a fairly mundane spell, but I can't think of anything off the top of my head. [snip] would you permit us to use read magic or something to actually copy the documents?

I always liked Create Treasure Map - but that's not entirely appropriate here.

It would be cool to be able to create a copy of a map/document by magic. I haven't found anything like that on d20pfsrd so it's safe to assume, there isn't any. Perhaps a quill of copying would be a cool wondrous item, doing just that.

Let's hack something; using the read magic spell gives a +15 circumstance bonus on a single linguistics check to copy a document.

Oh Sindran good call picking up a wand of cure light wounds, I forgot the biggest challenge of evil campaigns is the complete and utter lack of healing

Well, someone has to make sure that the meatshields stay meaty. That just makes me hungry.

On the other hand, I'm sure Cala likes her meatshields as skinny as possible.

(I'm having my brain fried at work, will not be posting today)

yay, work is done, and no one has called me yet telling me the software is broken, so I guess it isn't ;)

I intend to explain what Arryn has found, do something fun for Cala, and follow up on our working boys Oret and Talon.

Sindran, your visit to father Donnagin will take a little more time to go into. I hope to get to that tomorrow.
Also, we will probably not be going to detail for every action of every character of every day for the next 4 weeks - I write software, not stories for a living ;)

No worries. And that's totally understandable. :P

Having fun watching everyone else at the moment.