GM Tealk's - Return of the Runelords (Inactive)

Game Master Brainiac

So, what do you all want to do with the medusa now that she has surrendered?

Sorry, I was thinking that Flik and Remy would good cop/bad cop (Diplo/Intim) her into revealing her secrets. ;)

Sorry, been short on time the past few days. I'll try to update tomorrow morning.

I will be out of town from Saturday March 12th until Sunday March 20th. I may be able to check in sporadically during this time, but posts will be much less frequent. I will resume normal posting and catch up when I return.

Alright, I'm back now. So the plan, as I understand it, is to openly approach the wereboars and try to negotiate a trade. Is this correct?

I think so. Of course, we may tell the wereboars it's all part of a ruse. Assuming Flik's feeling bluffy.

Flik is better at playing it straight, so let's start with that, then we can resort to lying, theft, or violence. Like adventurers!

Are you going to return the bracers to the wereboars, or just moving on? :)

Oh, right. Forgot about that! Yes, Flik would want to return them.

A bit busy this week. May not be able to update for a few days.

On Saturday I will be visiting family for two weeks. I will try to keep up, but bot me as necessary.

How is everybody feeling about the game? I know the pace has slowed a bit lately, and that's partially my fault. This adventure in particular is mostly a large series of dungeon crawls, which is not very conducive to exciting roleplaying.

I can either continue to run things as written or hand-wave a lot of the combats to get to the more engaging roleplaying moments if you'd prefer. Let me know. :)

If we keep the pace up, I don't mind the combats, but if we're going to drag the way we have been, then it might be good to summarize -- though, yes, in general, dungeon crawls are terrible in PbP.

I'm still enjoying it, and the slow pace is nice. Since the game started, I graduated college, started a job, published a book (with more on the way), got married, and moved into my own apartment.

So basically, I don't mind that it's not as fast, I don't have anywhere close to the same amount of time that I used to.

I think we've been doing a nice mix of short RP encounters in our dungeoncrawling. (I agree, dungeons are less fun in PBP. I'm running Cradle of Night right now and the last 1/3 is a huge dungeon. It's been a slog!)

Okay, I'll take out a few of the encounters and try to get the pace back up again!

Let's see what Maddie does this round!

I was out of town this weekend and I'm still catching up on everything today. I'll update this game tomorrow morning.

Flik, with your previous knowledge check, you'd know that shining children are immune to blindness. You can change your action if you'd like.

Roger. I'll heal myself instead,
CMW: 2d8 + 10 ⇒ (2, 7) + 10 = 19

Vindicator 7:

+1 BAB
+1 Fort, +1 Will
+1 HD (9hp)
+1 Caster Level (Cleric 9): (+1 2nd, 1+D 5th)
Feat: Shield Master
Channel as Cleric 9: 5d6
New Ability: Divine Judgement
+4 skill points: Disable Device, Perception, Stealth, UMD

Thanks to the phylactery, Borgol's channel is 7d6, which means he gets a +7 sacred bonus to AC from channeling into his shield. Until he gets hit.

Also, woo, true seeing and righteous might. 5th level cleric spells rock.

Leveled UP!

(And it looks like I only had half of my character leveled up to 12. Whoops!)

+ To a bunch of skills, and all skills are now class skills for me.
+ Some spells
--Remove Fear, Calm Emotions, Thundering Drums, Freedom of Movement, Greater Dispel Magic, Stunning Finale
+Soothing Performance

If anyone else is going to cover Greater Dispel Magic, I have other options for 5th level spells, but I figured it would be good, considering we are fighting runelords.

My CL is low, so it'd be better from you or Maddie

Paladin 13

HP +14

Heal +1
Perception +1
Knowledge (Geography) +1

Bonus HP

Lesser Restoration

Cleave

I already have Greater Dispel, Flik. I should probably try to remember that.

Numbers! I dunno, the auto-sheet spoils me.
Choices!
Feat: Quicken Spell
7th-level Spells: Limited Wish, Greater Teleport

Okey dokey. I'll pick a different spell then. Phantasmal Web it is!

I'll level up Remy and get gameplay going again tomorrow!

I'm sorry, guys. I've been struggling to keep up with this game. Life's been more stressful lately and I'm not sure that I have the mental capacity to keep this one going.

I love Remy, and Remy's and Borgol's relationship, but I haven't been able to focus on that as much as I would have preferred while running the game as well. If any of you know a GM who might be willing to take over for the rest of the AP, I'd be happy to hand the reins over and resume just being a player. Otherwise, it may be time to make this game inactive. :(

No worries; this should be fun, not a chore! I do really like this group. If we can't find a GM I'd definitely keep playing.

We can always try to throw out a desperate "Please save us, noble GM" call -- they do *sometimes* work, and we're a high-level group that's been solid, consistent and are in a later book -- so we might actually get some takers.

It's hardly a secret that I've been really busy as of late, so while I'd love to keep playing (I am still having fun) if we can't, that's alright as well.

Alright, if somebody wants to make that post looking for a new GM, we'll see if there are any takers.

Posted.

Reposting from your recruitment thread just I'm case that gets missed.

I am completely unfamiliar with the AP and only recently started GMing on these boards, but if you all are more than halfway through the AP and going strong a year after losing your original GM, then you seem like a good group. Could you give me some time to get the AP and figure out where you all are and what your arc has been so far?

We are a good group, if I do say so myself! Several people in the game are experienced GMs, and would be happy to give you a hand.

Okay, I have the AP and have been reading through both it and your run through it.

I don't mind jumping in a little in media res, though, helping you all continue the campaign while I get oriented. To do that, it would be really helpful for me if each of your characters could tell their version of the story so far. That would give me a great sense of your characters, of you as a player (and your fun), and the major story beats. I still plan to go back and read everything, but this would be helpful for me to get things moving sooner rather than later.

Please let me know if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or anything else. If you all are interested in having me as your GM, I'd like to get in with you all ASAP. If my style doesn't seem like it would jive with you, please let me know and I might be able to recommend some other people that I play for (who might not have seen the recruitment post).

Thanks for picking this up. I'm on vacation until June 20th, but Remy will be happy to tell her version of events when I return.

Awesome! I'll get up my version of the story this week. (It's the last week of school and I have a bit of a writing deadline coming up, but I'll squeeze it in!)

Sounds good. It'll be a stupid week at work this week, but I'll do what I can to get something by the end of week -- worst case, I should be a little quicker than Remy.

Thanks GM Polyfrequencies for taking us on!

So Fergus grew up on the stories of his kin, Cordwin, who is also his Sihedron hero per the AP, and he very much admired him. So when he found himself in a situation with a bunch of heroes solving a mess by Runelords returning, how could he say No?

So to summarize the story to Fergus, the Runelords are returning and that would be very bad for everyone. Therefore he hopes to stop this, and become just as much of a hero as his kin, Cordwin.

The first DM had an angle where people remembered Cordwin as a villain and not as a hero, but I think that was more of his hook then what's in the AP.

Also, Fergus is attracted to Corla, so if he finds love in all this, the better.

Remy's backstory is in her character profile. Born male, fell victim to a trap that placed her in a clone body of Runelord Sorshen. She and Maddie were drawn into this world from a parallel universe. (The original game we had signed up for died out before the first encounter even got started, and the original GM for this game was kind enough to save us by bringing us into this one!)

She's had a difficult time adjusting to her new body and this new world. She even met the version of herself from this reality who never fell victim to the trap, which left her shaken. But having Maddie as a friend and a link to her original world has helped her, as well as the kindness of Borgol, which has since blossomed into love. She fought against it at first, but couldn't deny her feelings forever and was thrilled to learn that he reciprocated. He, more than anything, has made her feel welcome and comfortable enough in her new form that she is beginning to embrace her femininity.

Borgol's full history (pre-Cove) is in the character profile - and those experiences will certainly have shaped his perspective/reaction to the more recent events -- but I'll quickly go through the high-points of what's happened as part of the AP.

Borgol felt drawn to Roderik's Cove, and for the first time, felt actually somewhat settled there - he'd made some friends and was making some coin as a hunter -- when, suddently things in the Cove got strange. People were getting angrier, more violent, and there was even a ghost. And so, filled with a desire to protect his new home (and the teachings of Erastil that inisisted he do that), he took up arms - with a number of his friends, to hunt things down. At the time, he thought that settling the ghost would make things go back to normal. (Today, he laughs at his naivete, and, considering everything he's seen and experienced, isn't even sure what normal is anymore.)

While resolving things at the Cove, he felt reality... shift.. in a strange way -- the first of a few encounters where someone was messing with time -- and realized that his memories no longer matched the world around him. Even more bizarre, two people literally fell out of a hole in time and space -- good people, thankfully, who joined in the fight against... whatever was going on. He was certainly attracted to the beautiful woman that appeared -- she was in the body of the Runelord of Lust, after all, and moved with a grace that couldn't be described.... But then he learned that she was, in fact, a male trapped in that body --- and so he spent weeks (months, really) trying to push away that attraction and to be a fair companion to Remy. (He was being a mite Lawful Stupid about things there, making assumptions and kicking himself for it all)

Anyhow, what was supposed to be a local thing turned about to be way, way more -- there were foul magics and Runelords about -- messing with time, fighting amongst themselves -- all for reasons unknown. The group headed from place to place, playing catch up and trying to put out fires, while reality continued to change around him -- to the point that even some of his original companions simply ceased to exist, and the group are the only ones who remember them. And, just to make things even rougher for poor Borgol, Sorshen, the real one, started to toy with the group -- and with his attraction and confusion, it was easy for her to torture him (but, per his Lawful Stupid, he did his best to hide all that from everyone). Of course, through much of that time, Borgol saw himself as, at best, a "fill-in" for an actual hero -- and that the real heroes would eventually emerge to handle things (and, in his mind, that'd probably be the Sihedron heroes, given his past).

However, eventually, things changed in Borgol -- he started to internalize and understand things that Leandra (the Sihedron Hero who 'saved' him and taught him stuff as a teenager) used to say about her adventures; his faith in Erastil helped him find faith in himself, accepting the role of Vindicator; he started to realize that if the Runelords were toying with him, then he must actually have value and be capable of changing things; and, he finally stopped being quite so Lawful Stupid and talked to Remy.

All that to say, he began to trust himself and his abilities -- and those of his companions -- which was doubly important, as it was almost impossible to trust reality itself anymore. He's even found a small measure of actually liking Sorshen, despite it all -- though he's still quite sure that she'd throw them away like used tissue the moment their interests no longer align... He just thinks she'd feel a little bad about it afterward, for a minute or two.

So now, he's actively hunting Runelords and their followers, trying to stop plans that are too complicated for him to understand -- but still managing to find faith that they'll succeed.

Flik is a wandering bookseller, and was a pretty easygoing person before the events of this adventure kicked off. He had noticed that things were getting pretty strange on some of his trips, with places and people suddenly seeming to appear out of nowhere or to shift in strange ways.

To very briefly sum up his impression of things so far: There are people messing around with the residents of Varisia who are just trying to get along in their everyday lives. The more Flik learns about them, the more determined he is to stop their plans so things can go back to relatively normal.

Maddie is a curious girl who, at an even younger age started getting strange dreams and even waking visions. They were prophetic, but in an unusual way- they always incorporated herself in some form. Namely, herself as an adult (or at least an adult to her four-year-old eyes) doing fantastic things and wielding magic. Occasionally- an occurrence that grew more common as she grew older- her older self would actually interact with little-Maddie, teaching her the basics of magic. By the time she was eight, she was already a proficient wizard, and her lessons with her future self had mostly drawn to a close.
After a fairly odd day in the market, Maddie suddenly found herself pulled to another timeline alongside Remy, a woman who swiftly became Maddie's only real source of comfort in this strange new world, missing not only her but anyone who she might recognize as family.

Fortunately, she's always been a fairly adventurous gal and took it mostly in stride. How could she not, after all? Some of the half-remembered dreams she had as a kid were finally starting to come true! She's becoming an awesome wizard, and she gets to learn all this really cool magic and see all these really cool places!

@GM Polyfrequenices, I believe that's everybody now. Looking forward to getting going again when you're ready. :)

I sent GM Poylfrequencies a PM a few days ago, but haven't heard back yet. We may need to try to find somebody else again if we wish to continue.

Too good to be true, I guess. I'm about to be away on holidays for 2 weeks, so worst case, I can do it when I get back.

... So, now, more than 2 weeks later and no sign of Polyfrequencies (unless Remy got a DM?) -- and him still posting to his other game -- I think it's likely that we're still orphaned.

That said, I'm thinking we cast the net one more time -- assuming everyone still wants to continue?

I never got a response, unfortunately. I'm open to trying again if the others still want to continue.

Yes, I agree! Let's cast the net again and yes, I am still interested in continuing!