A Grim Moon Looms ; A Young Pantheon Grows (Inactive)

Game Master leinathan

I was writing up a post, but I realized this needs to be ooc. Adol's behavior these last few posts doesn't feel very "paladin" to me. Or Lawful Good. He's frenetic and seems to think the guards should just see things the way he does and do what he says. Binding the villagers didn't feel great either, but I understand the practicality with only 2 of us.

I'm having a hard time reconciling Adol's actions with his premise. Am I the only one who feels this way? Is there a Paladin Code here follows, similar to the ones in ISG?

@Maika - I've thought about your question. I think the best way to handle it would be to have "entry halls" to important places be made into permanent demiplanes connected physically via gate to the actual plane, and then to have "keys" (tuning forks) given to people who regularly visit. That way, the off-target nature of plane shift is ameliorated by the smaller size of the demiplane, meaning you only have to take a short walk to get to your destination.

How do you feel about this solution?

Alithea, - I don't think it's inappropriate for a person as self-important as Adol is (I mean, he made up his own religion based on a lie that a teammate told him. If that tells you anything, it's that he has willpower) to be pushy and hasty and impatient. I'm not sure anything he's done is anti-paladin. If his behavior makes Alithea uncomfortable, another reminder to slow down might be in store.

HOWEVER, Adol, Alithea does bring up a good point! What code does Adol follow?

....I feel a little irked that I didn't come up with that idea myself. XD It's a good one, and certainly makes sense. Easy to shut off in an emergency, too.

@Alithea, I'm not entirely sure what you expect from a LG character. Alignments are always debatable and heaviliy debated indeed. However, from my perspective, Adol's behavior seems perfectly in-character for the situation. Paladin's are about justice, as one aspect. That means punishing criminals. Law enforcement isn't always nice and kind to them. I think that by definition, they can't be. I've tried to be extremely nice to every civilian I have talked to, but there haven't been many of those we have interacted with. Mostly, our interactions have been with clearly evil entities. The moment those start attacking us or threatening the safety of innocents around them, the priority for a protector should change to protecting the innocent and/or weak from the threat.

If Adol is thrown into a situation where a powerful undead is sacrificing innocent civilians (children) right in front of him, in addition to having killed an entire temple's worth of Abadaran clerics, added to how the guards near the gates seem so terrified of the undead that they are refusing to speak outright even after the undead with them is destroyed, I don't think it is any strech to assume Adol would be very predisposed to directly ending this undead advisor threat and freeing these people from his tyranny. From what I've seen/heard, it seems clear to me that the people here are being terrorized by him, treated as little more than sacrificial fodder (he demands sacrifices) that the advisor keeps locked inside the gates by posting undead far more powerful than the guards at the exits. The situation couldn't be more dire and I think most good characters would want to take action swiftly.

Of course, I realize some members of the group wanted to give the undead advisor a chance to speak. Ooc, I wanted to learn that information too, but he wanted us to ally with him or at least promise to help him beforehand in exchange for this. Considering where we were, with dead law-abiding clerics, undead children-monstrosities he created and more innocent people's 'in a daze' all around us waiting to be the next sacrifices, I don't think any law-abiding or good person would ever take this deal. For that matter, having an amiable conversation with him where we do not even perform basic 'handcuffing' procedures following the fight already feels like a stretch alignment-wise; it heaviliy breaks both the good and lawful axis as I understand them. Do you think an idealistic police officer would simply let some Jack the Ripper-type character back up following a struggle taking place in his slaughter dungeon, to calmly listen to his justification to all this? Because that's exactly what this feels like to me. If he hadn't openly demanded sacrifices, then I grant you my premise could have been wrong and that he was somehow innocent, but he did.

It is true that maybe it is not my call to make to try and execute him on the spot, but considering he tried to escape twice and could be assumed to be powerful enough to eventually make it, I did. The threat of him getting out and ruining more lives considering all the crimes he has already assuredly committed here outweigh the need for a trial, if such an opportunity even exists (who would dare judging him?) Of course, I failed to kill him, but I think Adol would consider this the right call.

Regarding the villagers, I think you're jumping conclusions. You don't know what I intend to say to say to the guards and I'm not sure how else to guide 5 people whose minds have been completely broken.

Of course, I completely understand If Alithea takes issues with the above as there is an alignment difference and as LN I fully expect her to feel less strongly about punishing tyrants. From a narritive perspective having a conflict between characters is also more interesting. To say it is unpaladin-like to want to quickly end the undead threat is something else, however.

@Divinity, I'll work on writing a paladin code. This is a first draft:

Thoughts? There are some references to iomedae's paladin code and to a number of things in his backstory.

Regarding being hasty and impatient, I should probably add that I am trying to move the narritive along with most of my posts. I'm not sure if that adds to a perceived issue on that front, if there is any. I try to follow this PBP guidem which has narritive pushing as a high priority:

https://paizo.com/threads/rzs2qciy?Building-a-Better-Doomed-Hero-Painlords

Edit: I checked the pathfinder wiki for the definition of lawful good and found this:

"Lawful good characters act as a good person is expected or required to act, combining a commitment to oppose evil with the discipline to fight relentlessly. Telling the truth, keeping one's word, helping those in need, and speaking out against injustice are all paramount behaviors of the lawful good, and a character of this alignment hates to see the guilty go unpunished."

Going on that, I think that nearly everything Adol has done so far fits lawful good perfectly. The exception is probably suggesting to open the Abadaran safe to read the documents and find out what was going on, which is something he probably wouldn't have done in less extreme circumstances. Even then, he still hesitates when it actually comes down to asking Ulliaza. In contrast, I think Rirsa presents pathfinder's neutral good well, with more of a desire to be openminded and open to forgiveness than lawful good, typicaly as represented by Sarenrae's faith. Before I went into pathfinder, pathfinder's neutral good was how I originally expected lawful good to be like - arguably the 'best' type of good and the most 'nice guy'. But that is not how it is represented in pathfinder, and it makes sense that agents of law should want to punish criminals and not let them go nor strike dubious deals with them if they feel like it.

Particularly the recent discussions about the guards made me feel like Adol is just assuming they should open up to him or otherwise treat him as an authority. I think that just overly rubbed me the wrong way.

That said, I know you want to move the game forward with each post, but you also post more often than anyone else, which can make it feel like a million things are happening at once, which also contributed to this feeling. Though I do think that hasty and impatient are intrinsically chaotic qualities.

While I understand what you're saying about just letting the guy talk, but your comparison falls short in that this person is literally immortal. At the time, we didn't know he had some kind of supernatural ability to become incorporeal either.

Finally re:the guard. Yes, I did taunt them somewhat (in truly the most simple sense). I just think there's a significant difference between a non-violent (but still aggressive action), and completely annihilating something. If we did get the undead to attack us while asking simple questions, we'd look better for it to the guards, whereas those guards fled from Adol in fear. Maybe it's not especially "not-paladin-y".

Alithea is going to abstain from responding in thread to a) just leave it, and b) the guards are around.

I like this bit, although I wish it was less snippy:

-I will remember a sword can be used to not only attack, but also parry. And stab, for that matter. Unlike the teachings of some other dieties and the seeming lack of knowledge regarding this among all intelligent races.

Godly teachings should sort of feel like simple instructive advice that holds deeper meanings. A sword being able to not only attack, but also to block, has some philosophical underpinnings involving seeing things as valuable for more than the most obvious use of them.

As for this argument, I think it's an argument where one side is arguing about the intent and the other side is arguing about the outcome. Both of you are right!

It is important to:

1.) Have a defined goal in-game and to spend all your actions on trying to reach that goal

It is important to avoid:

1.) Telling someone that their ideas are bad without putting forth and enacting ideas of your own.

It is important to:

2.) Moderate the number of actions you take compared to the rest of the party, so as not to force yourself into a narratively central role.

It is important to avoid:

2.) Sitting back and letting one PC take all of the actions and drive the story by themselves.

I also think that there have maybe been misunderstandings regarding what the people around you know, but that's just a worldbuilding DM-style of mine, so I'll just come right out with it:

None of these people know that their children have been turned into undead, or that the count's advisor is an undead. You know why? Nobody has any ranks in Knowledge (religion), so they can't make the check to know. None of these people have a Sense Motive high enough to beat the advisor's Bluff, so they believe everything he tells them. Your guys' role in the story is as the only people anywhere nearby that have the ability to figure out what is happening and stop it. If you want other people to know exactly what's going on through your eyes, you have to explain it to them.

I'm sorry for heading to the inn like that; but I'm kind of hoping to find out that it's full and that we might be able to use the inn that was outside Dalaston... It would be easier to monitor and convenient if we were attacked in a place without civilians.

@Divinity: Do you have any issue with Alithea taking Abadar's Truthtelling? It's obviously tied to Abadar in the game, but it so perfectly fits her portfolio, and she is supposed to be a master mage. I missed it at first pass because I didn't look at enchantment spells at all. Despite her normal opposition, I think a compulsion to tell the truth is fair game.

@Divinity, thanks for the feedback. I'll try rewriting the code to be more philosophical, though since Adol is limited to writing it himself, I am wondering how philosophical it can realistically be.

How long should I typically wait before posting? I'm trying to reel in taking too many actions myself, but it seems there were no other posts in the last day.

I just meant that one particular line. There's no reason why someone can't stab with a longsword. It just deals slashing damage when you do :P :P :P

Also, depending on what kind of sword you're actually talking about, a longsword could lack a point because it's designed for slashing instead of stabbing, or it could be pointed and designed for stabbing.

Anyway, I wouldn't say it's a time thing. Just wait until it seems there's something to post about? If you're worried about other people not doing things, you could suggest things for other people to do. I know that at least Maika is in Adol's employ and will probably do what he says, right?

Maybe, but suggesting things to do feels functionally similar to giving people orders and limiting their freedom in what they want to do. Isn't that the same as drawing the narritive to myself?

Giving people orders and suggestions are very different things when it comes to the execution of actually doing it (one is like "hey you need to do this thing right now!" and the other is like "maybe we can do this thing?"). There's not too much that you can do to actually limit the freedom of your teammates - any power that a person has over another person is generally illusory.

The difference is in terms of spotlight. If Adol does 500 things and accomplishes everything by himself, no one else gets to look cool. If he says "Ok, we need to accomplish X and Y and Z, maybe while I go do X some other people can do Y and Z", it's still up to the players of the other characters to go "Well, he's right, we do need to accomplish Y and Z" (or disagree and come up with their own goals) and then actually execute the tasks, thereby earning their own spotlight.

- - - -

Do the rest of you have a horse in this race? I'd really like input on this discussion from the rest of you.

Adol is the one who offered her part of a dragon hoard, yes, so she considers him her primary employer. XD And she does give her loyalty to her current employer. In general, she's not going to judge what you do unless you break an agreement with her, and she'll go along with basically anything that doesn't violate her existing agreements.

I really don't have any horse in the race. Uliaza works best when she's not in the spot light, so odds are if she thinks there's something that needs doing, she's gonna tell people, and then just do it. I've taken a backseat for this particularly bit of RP because Adol kind of stormed in and took the whole thing over. It's basically either Adol's way or her way when it comes to discussions from what I can tell, and she knows better than to argue in front of the people they're talking to.

@Divinity I'd like to know something; at some point in Taldor's recent history or near future , there is a civil war-like event between the princess and a number of houses seeking to keep her from the throne. Has this already happened? Is about to happen and are tensions high, or is it even ongoing, maybe? These are the events from the War for the Crown adventure path.

I think such a major event is hard to miss, and since the Pathfinder Society is/was allied to the princess, Adol, a (currently inactive) Pathfinder, might have been involved in it in some way. He has at the very least done missions (usually indirectly) supporting the princess before, though there was one high-profile mission in which part of the noble faction inflicted a bloodbath in Taldor's Senate. While this happens early in the first book there, stopping this event after it has started is also an intervention mission in a high level Pathfinder Society adventure, which he has done. I'm fine with this not giving any benefits or ruling this out of existence, but if it did happen then it would be nice to know how far things have come since then.

@Ulliaza I agree I overshot this scene too much, I guess partly from a desire to show how he would more normally act when not immediately confronted with evil entities. Do you feel this way with the previous scenes as well?

@Maika Thanks.

My 2cp (as I have no idea of what is meant by "horse in this race" I'll default to that):

Some lessons are best learned on one's own... That's actually why I headed out to the inn. Other people won't calmly shrug off Adol's assumptions and prove him otherwise- they tend to get quite upset- and that should prove an important to lesson for Adol; that his assumptions have consequences- especially if voiced. Rirsa used to be Lawful Good until I realized that her developing philosophy would occasionally but her at odds with the powers that be. A guard often becomes a guard for a reason; and I've yet to see any hint of corruption in the guard; until given reason to suspect otherwise I'll grant them the trust that entails and whatever powers they kneel to aid them in surviving my wrath if they break that trust.

This adventure takes place in 4722, which is after the conclusion of all of Paizo's first-edition adventure paths - except possibly Kingmaker, which could take decades to resolve.

Having a horse in the race means that there is a horse that you have bet on, which means you stand to lose something from the resolution of the race. In other words, in means you care about the issue at hand.

All right, then I'll assume Adol is a war veteran from the initial sparking of the Taldan civil war and that he has fought in a battle or two, when the princess called on her allies to fight.

@Rirsa ok, that's a fair point. On this issue, I think that if Adol has no flaws, he is both A: boring as a character and B: has no room to grow.

Having a horse in the race means that there is a horse that you have bet on, which means you stand to lose something from the resolution of the race. In other words, in means you care about the issue at hand.

I see; thank you for teaching something I did not know.

I think that Adol’s presumption of his authority is an interesting narrative device, and contrasts well with his rashness and, at least in Cal’s perspective, youthful naïveté. Though posting slightly less frequently and, by that extension allowing others more opportunities to post, I think personality-wise Adol is fine. Mortals are imperfect, and we’re still fairly mortal.

I have family in town and doing my daughter's birthday today, my son's baptism tomorrow, and we're doing a 10k on Monday. I'll still be around, but probably slower to post, and only on my phone.

I need to leave for the remainder of the day and a good part of the next, so the post I made in the gameplay thread will be the only one from me for a while, excluding perhaps a short one tomorrow morning.

Feels a little awkward to see no posts for 2.5 days. Was my suggestion that bad? :') (I mean, I know Alithea was gone, was everyone else gone too?)

I'm fine with just fast forwarding to the mayor and skip past this if that is the issue. Maybe a wis 9 character would not be able to figure out the guards' reaction seems a bit weird (it could just be me personally finding it odd - seemingly no communication between remaining priests and guard, seemingly fairly relaxed reaction to news of multiple homicides etc). I'm fine with deleting it if the GM has that ability.

That aside, I'd like to ask permission to change Adol's premise slightly. The way I orginially wrote him as a super naive cheerful good guy was how he was during most of his pathfinder career. After this, he was involved with two civil wars, got exiled from his own paladin order for reasons he doesn't agree with and was semi forced into a position of rulership for an unknown period of time. Before, all this had no effect on him as a person whatsoever. This probably realistically should be the case and that being a bit more jaded than he used to be is the result. Of course, that doesn't make him any smarter per se. This would be more in line with his behavior after the combat here, which is probably not OOC for the aligment but I do agree is OOC for his original premise.

I've just been watching and waiting; myself.

I've been waiting for the GM to post the response the soldiers had to both her and Maika's statements.

Adol moved the scene forward already, making my own guard responses irrelevant.

Sorry. I didn't think the guards would do something following three seperate diplomacy/diplomacy-like answers checks to de-escalate the situation. I probably should have waited, yes. I guessed that given Ulliaza's reaction and Alithea's comment here that these bits of RP weren't liked that well OOC too and I partly wanted to quickly stop anything related to Adol escalating anything.

It's my fault for not specifying. Uliaza would not have followed Adol until after getting a response from the guards.

Well, what it accomplished is that you posted something, and then you posted the response to that thing and then in the same second post moved the scene forward and brought up a new topic of conversation. It took away my opportunity to post, significant actions on part of the NPCs or not.

Yeah that's a my bad. I should have waited to mention the whole 'Constantly detecting magic' thing until after mentioning her not leaving and getting a response.

Let's move on!

Is everyone going to The Blind Eye to interview the mayor? Are there other tasks you want to accomplish?

I'm working on securing a warm place to sleep.

I'd like to follow up on the mayor, but I'd rather have the others make the call. The only other lead i see now is talking to the clerics we saw at the town square.

@DM Divinity; you haven't forgot about me; have you?

So, I can't make you guys post, but I'm going to need more intellectual input from all of you (except Adol, who is doing a great job with this) if this game is going to function. You have several problems that need to be solved, and your characters are all equally responsible for solving them. I primarily need to see more posts from Uliaza and Calxakti in which ideas are discussed and concrete actions are taken.

There are many pieces of information that you don't have, and I frankly won't take "we don't have the resources to find the information" as a valid excuse from level 14 mythic characters with self-made organizations behind them.

Information you don't know:

Who is Eldran Tath? What are his motivations?
What are the bloodless? For what reason are they being created?
Why is the mayor working with Eldran?
Why is the dragon Horranath attacking Dalaston?
Where is Horranath's lair?

There are also a few basic tasks that you need to solve in order to stabilize the situation:

Track down and then defeat Eldran Tath and his bloodless.
Kill the dragon Horranath.
Stabilize town politics.

You have gathered some clues. Things you know:

Eldran came to town somewhat recently. No one you have asked knows anything about him, except that he's close to the count and that he's intimidating.

The Count demanded sacrifices be given over to the Abadaran temple some time ago. The sacrifices then emerged as superpowered undead and began terrorizing the town.

The dragon has made two attacks recently, one on a nearby mine and one on the town itself. Many have died and are wounded, and the city is on lockdown because of the attacks.

The mayor has assured everyone that he has a plan to take care of the dragon.

Adol's cohort received a vision about the situation, which she explained to Adol in this way: "We have seen cities destroyed, we have seen the heat of a forge, and we have seen a river of souls, stopped by a dam made of purple, glowing stone. We have seen a place - our divinations showed us a city: Dalaston."

Alithea's magic-detection artifact detected the use of powerful blood magic within the city of Dalaston.

- - - - -

It is everyone's responsibility to push the action forward! The less you do it, the more everyone else has to. I believe what you are doing now is questioning the mayor? Do we know what you plan to ask him? Who is going in to talk to him, and how?

What do you want to do after you are done with that?

If all else fails, I could simply try casting find the path to either Eldran or the lair of the dragon, though that is probably too easy and bound to run into some complications (Eldran could be underground, for all we know. Plus, the mayor is right in front of us and alone. He is an extremely valuable source of information and we should deal with this first?). For now, leaving the town in this state without at least questioning the mayor seems like a bad move. I'd also prefer not to wait too long - every moment that goes by either the dragon could be back or Eldran could try going after the villagers again, but that was already put forward in the game thread. I think Ulliaza (probably justifyably) wanted Adol not to be the spokesperson anymore so I'm simply waiting for other ideas and other people to take the front, at least temporarily.

For what to ask the mayor, a list of topics would be:

-Everything relating to Eldran (when did they meet, where, what does he know about him, how did he became his aide, does he have a home in the city or some other residence - does he know where Eldran might have gone? On Eldran's home, the town guard might also know this, or any knowledgeable villager).
-Why he turned to Eldran for the dragon instead of informing the crown back in Oppara.
-What his plan is in stopping the dragon (honestly, I'd forgotten about this, thanks for pointing it out, Divinity).
-Why the mayor agrees sacrificing his villagers is preferable to asking help from the Crown, who a reasonably intelligent person would probably figure has the connections to summon those able to beat the dragon, even if the crown doesn't have the resources themselves.
-If the mayor has any clue why this town is so important that it has the attention of both an ancient dragon and an extremely powerful undead necromancer.

There are just some examples I can immediately think of. Some of them could be asked to the Sarenrite clerics of the town as well. There is also one lead that a thief-type character or Maika could take in opening the safe in the church of Abadar to read the church documents, I think this option was discussed previously but then forgotten.

And what was that about a mine? Were they mining that purple stone for the town and is that why the town was attacked by the dragon...? I cant remember the mine ever being mentioned before.

Regarding fixing internal stability, I had an idea about sending a letter to the pathfinder lodge in Oppara (the capital city of Taldor), with a request to forward it to the Queen or whoever is our current liason with the Crown. I'm sure news about what the Mayor and his aide have been doing, whether or not the guard was also involved, would not sit well there. They might be able to send aid to restore local stability while we continue to deal with Eldran and the dragon. However, since we have more pressing issues to worry about right now Adol hasn't dicussed this yet.

I'd be inclined to contact the regional Abadaran bank. They're likely going to be much more furious at this offense to their temple, and they're all about instilling order.

Find the path is of limited use, as it can only be used on "prominent locations", which I would interpret as being locations that are not hidden. For example, if Eldran has some kind of secret base, you couldn't use Find the Path to find that base.

Also, a friendly reminder that you need line of sight to cast the message cantrip on someone.

Sorry for not being involved as much as I should, things have been a bit busy lately. Uliaza's thinking that the best bet for them would be to just focus in on the dragon and slay him.

Do Ulliaza and I, in particular, who dedicated time to getting people out of fires have any idea of the death count? In particular, we have a decent idea of how many bloodless Eldran has created, at least as a player, I don't know how many casualties / fatalities occurred during the dragon attack. I think this would factor into Alithea's threat assessment.

On the bloodless:

I don't believe you have ever actually asked anyone how many there are, but you have seen fourteen of them and have killed nine of those fourteen.

On the death count:

Since neither of you actually counted, you wouldn't know an exact number, but there were dozens of people who were injured and you know that somewhere around ten people died in this last attack.

I wasn't looking for an exact number, a rough idea helps.

I apologize for not being intelligent about information gathering; will do better in the future.

Maika; what is the caster level if your abilities you can cast through your contract ability?

Logically deduced, I think it'd have to be my character level, so 14. And to a maximum of 7th level Wizard and Cleric spells.

@Rirsa, I noticed something a bit weird reading back your discussion with the innkeeper. How does she know what a bloodless is, when no one else in the town seems to? How is she so knowledgeable about undead? Maybe you can ask her this before leaving?

@Rirsa, I noticed something a bit weird reading back your discussion with the innkeeper. How does she know what a bloodless is, when no one else in the town seems to? How is she so knowledgeable about undead? Maybe you can ask her this before leaving?

Good question; @ DM Divinity is that a inference or did Doriana actually say 'bloodless'?