Dispater's Devils by GM SnowHeart (a Hell's Vengeance AP)

Game Master SnowHeart

Waiting for the next round...

::sigh::

Was only getting notifications of new posts in Discussion. Jas...

Damn it. Same...

Waiting for the next round...

Yeah, combat’s over. :-)

And I was sitting here twiddling my thumbs waiting for the Fast Healing to tick (◔_◔)

Yeah... YOU have been very silent.

Sorry about that whole “nearly killed you”-thing. ;-)

I’ve been waiting for someone to say something about it!

Apparently, no one cared and I’m good to keep doing it! ;p

Lol, I was wondering if everyone was just utterly indifferent to the deputies' fates.

I (in and out of character) was waiting to see what Raziya thought

In light of the spotty gameplay notifications for some users, please just try to click into the thread once a day, even if you don't see any notifications.

Ha--not going to be me! The only two negatively affected by it were Brogol and Cimri, and neither seems to want to say very much about it (at least, not yet).

"Momma always said, 'If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.' That was right before she called me a useless, no-good, devil-spawn b@!&~ and left..."

FYI - It seems like the Windows installation on my desktop is corrupted or there is a problem with the SSD that it (and a lot of my personal files) were on. Trying to copy everything now to a backup drive, reformat the SSD and reinstall windows, but currently limited to my work laptop and iPhone, so posting may be a little difficult. Hopefully I'll be back up to 100% by the end of today.

Yikes. I hate that kind of stuff. :/

Ouch. Sorry to hear it Snow. Hearing that makes me want to go right away and backup my stuff :O

I used to be great about putting everything on DropBox but that filled up and I didn’t want to pay for more space. Then I setup a small hard disk for a backup drive but it got full so I cancelled it. Now.... :-(

Ouch...real sorry to hear that

Yeah, our office got hit by ransomware. We had a backup (but it failed). We had a second backup, off-site, but it took several days to ship it to us. Disastrous. :/

Oh no! Good luck getting everything back, Snow.

Desktop seems to be backup without having lost any files or work. *knock on wood*

Long story short I'd gotten very lazy and was probably way overdue for a clean install of Windows. Thankfully the one bit of luck is I actually didn't lose any files or work.

Sounds like it worked out better than feared. :)

It's always such an awful feeling when you have to work really hard and stress like crazy in order to get a neutral outcome - but I'm glad it's where you landed!

Got slammed with some committee business over the weekend and really busy today. Apologies - hope to get caught up tonight.

No worries, Brogol. You've been remarkably steady at posting; I figured something was up in RL. Thanks for checking in.

My *favorite* evil is the charming kind. The evil that is reasonable, and polite, and which is wants as many people as possible to live normal, happy lives. But when the situation calls for it, the hammer falls without a hint of mercy, and it will be uncaring about any calls for justice or temperance.

For Ingrid, her mind works much like Machiavelli’s did in The Prince.

“ Many others … employing cruel means were unable to hold on to their state even in peaceful times, not to speak of the uncertain times of war. I believe this depends on whether cruelty be badly or well used. Those cruelties are well used, if it is permitted to speak well of evil, that are carried out in a single stroke, done out of necessity to protect oneself and then are not continued, but are instead converted into the greatest possible benefits for the subjects. Those cruelties are badly used that, although few at the outset, increase with the passing of time, instead of disappearing. Those who follow the first method can remedy their standing both with God and with men, as Agathocles did. The others cannot possibly maintain their position.”

Sadly the Archbaron doesn’t think this way. But for Ingrid, she won’t be unnecessarily cruel and will take the diplomatic path when possible. However, when the time for cruelty comes, it must be complete and final.

LOL. I get that. I do remember, perhaps at an extreme of that, running a table of "Throne of Night" with a party of drow. They were supposed to be Chaotic Evil. When they took over a city of gnomes, they setup health care and retirement (no kidding), and were super, super nice, on the theory that by being nice, the gnomes would never understand they'd been conquered by evil drow. It sort of worked... except they never took anything for themselves and couldn't objectively be called "evil".

Then I prepare to run Hells Rebels, after they turn down Way of the Wicked and Hells Vengeance, and they're all like, "I want to play a diabolist. I want to play a murdering highwayman."

I was like, "Y'all just don't get it, do you?" :p (I think they actually do and just like to drive me nuts.)

Haha, evil-motivated healthcare and retirement, that's great. Back when I GM'd a tabeltop group, this contrarian mindset would show up fairly often with my group too.

“The King is evil! He cavorts with devils!”

“Meh. When my granny broke her leg the king provided free healthcare.”

“That was infernal healing!”

“You can make up as many words as you want, but all I know is that crime is down*, my granny can walk, and I can see where my taxes go.”

* Crime is down because the King heavily stringently the thieves guild, treating it as a secondary form of taxes. Every once in awhile he cracks down on his rivals/independent thieves, to show how strong the state is

* Taxes go to furthering the war effort, to dominate the region and to assassinate the entire royal line of the previous ruler

^ Hahaha this is great. "That was infernal healing," heh. May have to use a variant of this in our game :)

Terry Pratchett’s Lord Vetinari is coming to mine

Quick question: I was planning on showing a little more of Raziya's homelife - should I narrate Constanzia, or would you prefer to?

Go right ahead! I love the idea.

Huzzah! I already have a 'voice' for her in my head, but I like to check in with the GM before I snatch up an NPC for my own uses :-p

Hey all. Someone at one of the two tables I'm running reached out with a question via PM that I thought was very fair, so I wanted to touch base with everyone about it.

Simply put, how are you feeling with the campaign so far? Are you frustrated, not really feeling it, and if so what would you like to see more or less of?

I don't want to go into a lot more detail right now for fear of either spoiling something that hasn't been asked to be spoiled or suggesting problems where people don't see any (or steering the conversation to a couple of issues that miss others), but I did want to check in with you.

If you prefer, feel free to reach out via PM.

Thanks!

I’m loving it so far. It’s such a rare treat to have an intelligent evil, and I think you’re doing a great job

I'm very much loving this campaign. I feel like the best villains have some humanity still, rather than being evil for the sake of being evil, and I like how our characters are trying to justify their actions for the sake of order, keeping in line, etc.

You're a great GM and we have a lot of fun players here. I'm having a great time.

I've enjoyed being at this virtual table greatly. You're doing a great job as GM, and the players here are really strong. I love what everyone is bringing - the PCs are distinctive and their motives are genuine to me. The setting is too - it is very much "alive" in my head, and has seemed quite reactive so far.

Don't like that Saster guy though :)

I updated the loot sheet to include the stuff we found at the sheriff's office and on the deputies after we beat them.

As a reminder, we have 8 unidentified potions and an unidentified wand.

GM, FYI your formula for Gear Value doesn't seem to be working. I'd try and fix it myself but I'm a humanities guy - spreadsheets aren't my thing.

I'm fine and dandy over here :-D

Oh, though speaking of the gear sheet, Raziya will take as much of her gold cut as possible in onyx gems for later...

I am absolutely loving this!

I am absolutely loving this!

Oh, though speaking of the gear sheet, Raziya will take as much of her gold cut as possible in onyx gems for later...

Noted! It is never too early to put ranks into craft (jewelry) :)

Brogol, I'll take a look at the gear value.

Also, thanks for chiming in everyone. Please do let me know if things aren't quite jiving for you. I try to be open to feedback and honest about the direction things may be going, and about what I am able to adjust or not.

I've found no AP is perfect and the inevitable flaws can be more bothersome for some players than others. If there is stuff I can do to accommodate, I will definitely try.

Hey all. Someone at one of the two tables I'm running reached out with a question via PM that I thought was very fair, so I wanted to touch base with everyone about it.

/waves

As the person in question here, yes, I haven't been all that into the campaign so far. In interest of not yucking anyone else's yum, I'll avoid going into any specifics as to why, but essentially the structure of the adventure was not my cup of tea.

Snow has assured me that the story will be moving away from the kinds of things I wasn't that into, so I'm planning on sticking around and continuing. That said, I'm leaning toward swapping Vivia out for a different character. She's not panning out to have the right kind of drive for an adventure of this kind.

And I do mean it, Vivia/Cellion: thanks for talking with me about it!

Also, on a related note...

Everyone is now level 2. For HP, take average and round-up (e.g., d10 is 6pts, d6 is 4, etc.)

I'd very much like to see Cellion stick around, whether in Vivia form or otherwise. We need great RPers like you!

Also, hurray for level 2!!!

Okay, leveled up and ready to go.

Level 2:
Class Taken: Cleric
Class Feature Gained:
Hit points Gained: 1d8, +2 Con, +1 favored
Skill Points (1 +1 human +2 background): bluff (1), perception (1), perform (1), sleight of hand (1)

One spell I am hoping to use creatively is Dancing Lantern. I had been casting Light on the skull and almost treating it like a lantern last level. Would it be okay to use this spell to have the skull float and follow me like the dancing lantern spell?

Lvl 2:
HP: +6
Saves: +1 Fort +1 Will
BaB: +1
Skills: +4
Fervor!: 3x
Spells: +1 lvl1

@Cellion, if you haven't been into it, it hasn't shown - your posts are quality and I've enjoyed reading them. Hope you stick around, with or without Vivia (who I also like, but understand when a PC isn't grabbing you).

Level 2:

HP: +6 +1 con +1 favored class
Saves: +1 ref
BAB: +1
Skills: 12 (8 base + 1 human + 1 int +2 background)
+1 inspiration
Rogue Talent (underworld inspiration)

Raziya Magaalye wrote:

Oh, though speaking of the gear sheet, Raziya will take as much of her gold cut as possible in onyx gems for later...

Noted! It is never too early to put ranks into craft (jewelry) :)

Yes, yes, Jewelry...

***

Oracle level 2 is real simple. Picked up Cause Fear as a bonus spell from my Mystery and that's it for non-skill 'choices'

Skills mainly kept advancing as normal, but Diplomacy, Knowledge (religion), and Knowledge (nobility) are on pause while I shore up Disguise, Knowledge (planes), and Knowledge (geography).

Brogol, you know what I think I did forget in the Gameplay thread though was the stuff you sent the messenger to buy. He bought it. You got it. Just... a bit late for the postings. :-)