5E Adventure's in Midgard – North (Reaver's Spring)

Game Master Tareth

So where are you going to scout first? :)

I'm thinking the ghouls.

Ghouls it is. Been swamped with work and brain is fuzzy from the record setting heat here in PDX. (We don't have AC here at the house.) Will try to move things forward tomorrow.

Y'all got heat. We're getting a lot of thunderstorms down here.

Also, dealing with triple digit heat with no AC is insane. I hope you're staying hydrated and somewhat cool.

Wish we still had Scram with us.

And so you shall!

It's actually the worst time I could possibly come back (RL) but I have been lurking and really itching to game recently. Perhaps just one game...

Tareth gave me a massive whopper prompt upon exit though with Mnemosyne's judgement, going to have to mull it over a bit. I'll see if I can get a post together in the next day or two if its alright.

Don't forget you have a Raseri looking for you. :P

I'm more than happy to see you back. Hope life gets better for you as well.

So I kind of want to change Scram back to Thief instead of Soulknife, Illarya's sapphire orb being vengefully wrenched from his mind by a certain someone. However, I've been looking at the playtest Thief and it looks like amazing improvements across the board.

Do you guys have any experience mixing playtest toons and 5e toons? Would it work/be fair for all? Would the hassle of multiple rules be acceptable by DM?

Hey Scram. Welcome back. Every time you try to get out, you just get dragged back in. :)

I'm paying zero attention to the new 5E play test stuff and I've kind of been burnt on some of the UA and other things in the past. And honestly I don't have the mental bandwidth at this point to try and sort through it. You are totally welcome to switch your subclass if you want, but it'll have to be with something that is already in one of the main published books.

Yeah, the thing about relying on rules releases and setting books for your revenue, you kinda burn out our GMs and players at some point because of all the options.

On an unrelated note, I did a thing.

No worries and totally understand, I've played Thief a bunch and the changes caught my interest is all. No doubt it would have been somewhat annoying for me as well.

Nice drawing! The head and neck especially look very alive/attractive imo.

So I haven't really written anything except academic papers for the last four months. Getting a catchup post going.

Thanks! I was a little worried when I did the inks there that I'd goofed.

Love the post, by the way. I think Trollshit's going to be living up to his name when a certain tempest cleric catches him.

@Arianna:

Thanks, and yes indeed. :) One direction we could go that I was thinking about... When she gets the blade back, for reasons to become clear she would strike down Scram, too...slicing through the top half of his head.

Illarya's sapphire gem (which was metaphysically, not physically, inside his head) would become embedded in Heiður, and the weapon would become a psionic, intelligent weapon possessed by some kind of Illarya/Scram hybrid for Raseri to kill some people with. >:D

Scram would go back to being a mere thief instead of a soulknife that way, once brought back to life. He would then re-enter the game Gandalf-style thanks to Mnemosyne's mercy.

Also, I had meant to include the silver-faced hag in the crackerjack crew but completely spaced on it. :(

@Tareth:

odd...as I actually try to reconcile what is in the recent 5E Southlands book with the Midgard Worldbook the story and situation of Mnemosyne, Nethus, Seggotan, and Yemaja is very contradictory. But I guess no one can know the gods.

I dug into this some more. Yes, I assume the author of the original Journeys to the West (published 2012) isnt with KP anymore, and probably some supplemental adventures took liberties and such that made their way into more current publications. Sadly I got a new computer and forgot to transfer over my gaming pdfs so I lost that one. :(

As far as the 'imprisonment' goes, it isn't super important to me. I think it caught my attention originally just because it sounded like something a thief could relate to. I'd be game to say she escaped from prison at some point, Scram would respect that.

Strive to uphold the law always

Yeah, no. Scram is really a terrible follower of Yemaja given the Southlands deity entry. And I'm totally fine with that, in fact that is how it should be. XD

One thing that has persisted in all the KP incarnations however, and the one thing that could be the strongest connection between Scram and her (or the only reason she tolerates him) and maybe interesting to develop in our shared narrative is the idea of protecting women and children.

Shelter females and young from harm.

For all his faults she could still be a friend to Scram because of his connection to Vee. She (you) even already mentioned Vee right before she pulled into the pool. Or perhaps it was her doing that caused Scram to have such an extreme fatherly reaction to the appearance of Vee that no one else really had. Interesting food for thought, and that connection could maybe be put to the test in a dramatic/conflicted way.

Also, the Southlands titans are her children, so that might be something to explore if we ever reach down there. I haven't read anything about them yet.

Knowing Raseri, having a gem just embed itself into her sword is not going to make for a happy, zappy, Lady of Storms. She worked hard on that sword and now some elf-sired magic gem is trying to hitch a ride, not to mention it's an elf-sired, intelligent magic gem. I can see her embarking on a quest to find the person whom the gem belongs to and just pointing at it while demanding they get the damn thing out.

As for the discrepancies, it's also possible that the team decided to go a different direction after thinking on it. Lord knows we've seen that with Pathfinder's and WH40K's lore, and I don't think Paizo, at least, had all that much churn in the people in charge of the lore over the years.

Haha, I had a hunch you would say something like that. Still, that might provide a way for Raseri to engage with the full party if thats still something you were thinking about. She would have to go back to Narg for Illarya who is technically the 'owner', but Scram would be closer and it would be completely his fault anyways. I suppose he would probably lie about being able to remove it then steal it again, lol.

I'm still thinking about it. If Arianna dies, then my plan was to work with Tareth to see how we could get Raseri in as my new character if we weren't in a place where Kali could come in. I think not using Raseri was a missed opportunity on my part, but c'est la vie and all that.

Hmm, Arianna is a drifter, and to be honest the only reasons she was sticking around were because she feels she owes the party a debt and because she wants to repay the gnomes' hospitality. That said, I like playing her and she's grown attached to the party.

I miss playing my zap-happy cleric, but I also feel like I'd miss playing Arianna. I may just leave this up to Tareth and what he feels would tell the best story/be the most entertaining.

Edit: And before I forget, maybe the silver-eyed hag joins up at a later date or is actually Trollshit. That would make for an interesting twist.

Yeah, the name is suspicious. Sounds made up. ;)

So, I was wanting to play that the removal of Illarya's Sapphire Orb had two mechanical effects. One was to change my subclass from soulknife back to thief. The other to change my gender from male to female, while simultaneously Illarya changed from female to male. One last little spurt resulting from our strange link, colliding with some fragment of Scram's dream adventure in Dalliance with the gender-bending potion.

Ready to re-enter gameplay RP whenever you'll have me. (and tell the party the spoilered story)

And I'd love to know what Carnadine and Raseri talked about. :)

I imagine it's Carnadine trying to calm Raseri down while she's going ballistic over what just happened to her sword. How angry she'd have to be in order to faze the normally unflappable Carnadine is something that I would not care to speculate on.

Also, I've got this image in my head of Carnadine holding Raseri back while she is trying to get to Scram so she can rez him just so she can find out what he did to her sword and then kill him again.

Oh yeah! Dang, wasn't thinking Raseri had raise. That would have been better than Mnemosyne bringing him back maybe, just to avoid the deus ex machina. Oh well.

In any case thanks for slogging through my bargain basement fan fic writing, glad it provoked some imagery at least. :)

Well, she is a cleric. Just because I had her throwing lightning most of the time doesn't mean that she couldn't raise people. If you had Ras do it, you'd need to figure out how he got away from her because she's not happy with him and isn't going to let him go until the gem was out of her sword, Heiður, and back to normal.

Okay, I want to do something really, really dumb, but I need to know a few things.

1. Does stealing count as an action that would break invisibility?
2. Does lighting something with a flint and steel break invisibility?
3. How far away is the tent to Marena?
4. How big are the barrels full of boom?

Arianna:

1. No, stealing does not break invisibility.
2. This is a little tricky. The act of striking the flint and steel do not break invisibility. However, the sparks and any flame on a 'fuse' you would be visible.
3. Distance: 1d100 ⇒ 79. Let's say 80 feet.
4. Barrels are small. More a 2 gallon cask size.

I guess that also applies if I light a torch with the intent to drop it on a fuse.

Okay, so here's the plan.

1. Steal a couple of gnome hats or something else that's identifiably theirs.
2. Grab a cask or two and leave them at the temple-tent. Set up a short (20-seconds or so Fuse)Leave a hat to frame the gnomes.
4. Set up a fuse (20-30 seconds) from the big stockpile of boomy stuff to a hiding place nearby. Leave another hat to frame the gnomes.
5. Hide in said hiding place.
6. Cast Minor Illusion to make some noise on the other side of the stockpile form the fuse. Maybe with some jokes and observations about the ghouls and the gnomes if the GM allows for telling jokes through the spell.
7. Light the fuse.
8. Cast Invisibility on myself.
9. Run for the temple-tent as silently as I can.
10. Light the fuse there.
11. Invisibility spell and run!

Okay. I think I'll try to boil this down to just a few rolls to see how well you pull it all off.

1. Sleight of Hand DC15 to steal the caps. (Basically, they wear these things all the time even when sleeping because otherwise Baba Yaga might come looking, so none are just lying around. Your best bet is to slip caps from those who're sleeping.)

2. Stealth DC13 for all the various moves. You'll be Invisible the whole time but still plenty of chances to hear, smell, or otherwise notice something is going on. The riskiest points are when you're lighting the fuses. Which don't break your invisibility, but the sparks and any flame will be visible. I don't think you need to recast each time.

3. A Deception DC15 roll to put the blame on the gnomes. This you can make with Advantage unless you fail either of the first to checks. In that case the Deception is made with Disadvantage.

If that sounds good, feel free to roll and post.

That does sound good. I'll go ahead and get the rolls out of the way then post some narration when I'm done with work.

Sooooo, GM, Going after sleeping gnomes wouldn't happen to give a bonus would it?

Or could I still steal the caps of their heads while they sleep, just wakin' them up?

Asking because I'd still like to try it, but I don't know what a 10 on that roll would do.

So the 10 means you still get the caps, but they woke up in the process. Being invisible, you can still get away easily enough, but the gnomes are alerted to something going on and begin a frantic search.

Per the original setup, since one of the two initial checks was a fail, then the Deception check is at Disadvantage. Depending on the result of that disadvantage roll, you may or may not have pinned the resulting destruction on the gnomes.

Also, I suppose since Arianna doesn't have much experience with explosives as far as I know, a final INT(Arcana) roll is in order to see how well you place the barrels for maximum damage and how well you time the fuse. :) This isn't a pass/fail roll, more of a higher is better (and safer).

Terms are accepted. Rolling in gameplay.

Well the 2 weeks of 110 degree weather finally broke in my area. A light rain dropped it back to 80 and felt amazing. Hope you guys are doing ok also.

I'm good. I'll be glad when fall comes around. It wasn't quite that high here, but we did see almost of week of triple-digit highs. (Here being central Alabama.)

Same here Scram, the weather is back to normal!

First, I apologize to the GM for creating this timey-wimey mess. I was thinking we had to act now and didn't realize you may have been foreshadowing until after I'd had most of that post up.

Second, I think I came up with a solid plan. Ingryd hides in a spot where she can cut off their escape and the rest of us try to keep our distance or get behind her. Gunnar and Luthael will have the best chance of knocking out a big chunk of them, so they might want to be together so that they can time their castings. All three of them get invisibility spells cast on them. That'll use up my last fourth level, but I think it's worth it. Scram and I can try taking out the leader from range and with any luck that'll cause enough confusion for us to mop them all up before they can think about running back to report.

And if we're really lucky, any magic they see will be attributed to gnomish treachery.

How many ghouls are there, and how close are the prisoners at this point?

Sorry folks, I do not have the energy to work on a post tonight. I'll try to have something up tomorrow.

Thanks for numbers, was imagining big force of 20-30 each for whatever reason.

If anyone's interested, I'm running a game.

Hey all, I'm away from my computdr this weekend and won't be able to post until next Tuesday. Hope you all have a great Labor Day weekend.

You do the same. We'll be here when you get back. :)

Anyone playing bg3? Its pretty amazing... The dialogue isn't quite the same league as bg/bg2/planescape but its got me laughing out loud quite often. Very faithful to rules with one or two big but understandable exceptions. Some great low level custom item ideas as well. I made Scram in it and am doing all the RP from their perspective. :) But yeah, kinda needs state of the art PC.

So we have one venturing off to go for the refugees, the rest are occupied and recieving rhe poweeful damage from the cleric and wizard

Yeah that's the situation at the moment.

I decided that getting the break away would be more important than getting the commander. I think out best option is to go no survivors and kill them all.

As a player I agree, given DMs foreshadowing of the tireless nature of the ghouls...outrunning them seems impossible. Whether or not Scram would deduce that, I don't know.

Oh don't worry, Arianna's thinking is that if the ghouls all die, suspicions get put on the ones that already seem suspicious in their eyes, and that would be the gnomes. She'd be quick to point this out to anyone if they ghouls start trying to escape.

Im not sure where to go and what to do. I saw they broke apart somewhat. Can I attack one of them?

Yes, you can move in and attack. Luthael left an area of his wall of fire open for you to be able to attack.

Awesome

Wanted to create a bottleneck in the open field.

So, I have a crazy plan to take care of Sliver. Is it possible to open new doorways onto the Shadow and Fey Roads? If it is, how far away is Sliver? Could I use my Inspiration to get a spell-slot back?

Sorry for the questions, I would love to keep Sliver from getting back to the ghouls. Besides, she seems smart and that's dangerous.

Just a heads up, no post from me tonight. I've got a family thing this evening and I need to be up early for a work trip. Might be Saturday before I can get a post up.

Bot me if needed

(Arianna is going to try stopping Sliver from escaping if she can.)