Rise of the Wicked (Inactive)

Game Master DireMerc

I have an incredibly cunning/stupid plan.

thoughts?

In the instances where I have split the party in the past I usually tell everyone to post their actions as normal and I reply to each group with a spoiler

But either plan has merit and thorn would forgive you for arriving on day 4 if you have something to show for it.

I'd like to buy both some more spells to put in my spellbook, as well as an additional spellbook for "just in case". Also, I'd like to get some more social spells, though most social spells are actually useless because they are limited duration and all spells are noticeable while casting.

Also, I'm not so sure we want to risk drawing that much attention to the keep at this time, maybe a week before we are set to attack it? I think for now, we should "play it safe" and put out some tendrils in freetown. Surely there is at least one cultist still hiding around there. Also, it would be a good way to get some intell to even see if people remember this keep and the happenings that went on here enough to warrant a response.

There's also that group we worked with before.

Do we have any magical way of communicating between the groups?
I do not think we do but please prove me wrong.

If Ryzzn is in the away group, she could send her familar back to the fortress if neccessary, which is some communication I guess.

Well, the group has 3 sending stones that were given to them at one point. They are one-time use items but can useful in a bind.

If shit hits the fan you can call Tiadora who can teleport at will to come get you.

1) I have not taken notes but from memory there are lots of places to search in and below our new tower. There is even a chest we could see but have not gotten to.

2) I strongly second Vinick in not drawing attention to us from the keep. Even if the plan works it could put the keep on alert, making our mission impossible. We dare not risk it.

3) I a against splitting the party unless it is for some of us to stay here and others go shopping. Even that is very risky knowing there is the treant and the elf lady about. I do not think we want to meet either at less than full strength.

In 3 days we can maybe both shop and hire muscle and maybe bring in more frogmen?

I have to agree with Vinnick, poking around the castle is a bad idea currently.

For Ajikisshochraos to relay messages, the characters need to be able to understand and speak draconic.

I see the ring of protection +1 (old loot) has not been claimed, so going to take it for R'yzzntyg.

Inserted a column B for Alexandr to enter the GP value of items, seeing Alexandr is good at quickly getting GP values of items. I suggest we use the selling price when item is to be sold, to determine characters wealth.

I thinking for R'yzzntyg, headband +4 wisdom, a pair of goggles for bright light so not to get dazzled. maybe something else. for Ajikisshochraos perhaps exotic saddle (though have not got to sorting out new drake yet), as only magical items she can wear (willing to wear - theme mechanics) is one ring or one amulet.

Just an idea about gathering information, I also believe we have a person of interest in Freedom Town. Could save some time but wouldn’t want to go ahead with it unless we agreed since it’s dangerous.

As for a list of items I have some basic ideas. The usual belt of dex and headband of int would be nice. The other ideas would be;
- a Sipping Jacket
- a Blackwick Couldron
- a Investigator’s Hat
- goggles of Night
- burglar’s boots minor

I’ll add these to my sheet for potential/interested gear for later with other variations.

Keep the budget in mind here. 100 worth of unsold loot sells for 40-60k. We have been warned we better hold the better part of half for equipping out new home. So when we split 6 ways we have 4+5K each to spend for mow and not the 16K we need for a +4 stat boost item. I was thinking +2 items initially to be upgraded later.

Also what we buy might be tempered with what we can locate for sale.

Is upgrading part of the rules? Part of my hesitation is that I would prefer him to wait for a +4 item :).

Upgrading such items is RaW. But finding an enchanter to do the upgrade might not be as easy as finding the item And then you might have to do without said item while it is being upgraded.

Fair enough, I just know those items would be helpful/useful. If they don’t turn up or can’t be purchased due to price or inconvenience it’s not usually a big deal. I can do similar stuff with extracts. I was thinking it more of a wishlist than anything. If they don’t turn up I wouldn’t be remiss about it.

for what it is worth everyone, Vinnick has craft Wondrous Item as a feat.

So, techincally, I can could craft 2 +4 items over 16 days. I think. Or 1, over 16 days. I think you use the crafting price, but I may be wrong.

Either way, I'll probably take the first item for himself. Greedy little bugger.

Hmm, that is a good point Vinnick. You could also do a little crafting in our "down time" now too.

Cori is pretty well-equipped for the moment. It wouldn't hurt to have one or more of the following, but I don't see an immediate need for any of them:

A Ring of Protection

An Amulet of Natural Armor

A Cloak of Resistance or

A Cloak of Displacement

I think we could weaken the forces at the enemy fort by staging marauding undead attacks lead by a "Lich" or "Death Knight" that would force the garrison to go hunting. We ambush the hunting party, kill them, then disguise ourselves as them. Once we are inside, we start systematically moving through the fort, killing sleeping guards, sabotaging catapults and ballistae, putting holes in foodstuff bags and barrels, etc.

Also, Cori can expose herself to a contagious disease and move through the fortress in disguise, forcing everyone she encounters to make a Fort Save not to become ill.

Just a few thoughts.

Well there is an unclaimed ring of protection on the loot spreadsheet, that I was planning to take for R'yzzntyg or Ajikisshochraos.

Besides headband of wisdom and googles to counter dazzle. I think these two items for Ajikisshochraos would help a lot in scouting. R'yzzntyg can become tiny to be able to ride on Ajikisshochraos, and go on flight patrols.

Also R'yzzntyg has access to the druid order to obtain information about various topics, though it takes 1d6 days to get the information.

DRAKE SADDLE
PRICE 6,000 GP
Aura moderate transmutation; CL 5th
Slot chest; Weight 10 lbs.
This fine leather saddle is adorned with various designs
of drakes and dragons along its sides. The wearer of this
saddle must be a drake, granting them the mount drake
power. The drake is also treated as one size larger when
determining its carrying capacity.
CONSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS
COST 3,000 GP
Craft Wondrous Item, mount

REDUCTION HARNESS
PRICE 6,000 GP
Aura moderate transmutation; CL 5th
Slot chest; Weight 10 lbs.
Made of intricately woven copper and silver depicting a
mighty beast being reduced to a small cub, this harness
can only be worn by a drake with a charge or an animal
companion. Upon being activated with a command word,
the wearer’s size is reduced to Tiny, remaining so indefinitely
until the command word is spoken again.
CONSTRUCTION REQUIREMENTS
COST 3,000 GP
Craft Wondrous Item, reduce person

Evil Plots!

Staging attacks vs. "Hej, crusaders, we found these things and have a bad feeling about it, also, there is this dark keep giving off really spooky vibes" are pretty similar. The drawback of Coris plan is that they will definitly be on alert, if we are "helpfull adventurers that may have uncovered something" we would probably spend some time traveling with our future prey, which should give us opportunities to know their names, mannerisms, preexisting relations and ticks. Also, sacrifice for thorn :).

Issue in traveling with them is our disguises I think not lasting sufficiently long though. hmmmm.

Great idea with the Biowarfare, how are the parties fort saves? Alexes is pretty high because Bloodrager has Strong fort save, and he dipped in spiritualist which also has strong fort saves.

The trickery may be something we can accomplish small scale. I think if we start claiming things and attacking them we could cause them to clamp down before we actually get into the castle. With them being on alert and going into a defensive posture. It could be a decent option though!

As for a fortitude save, I’m at +2 I could buff it temporarily, but I wouldn’t rely on it.

Its good to think outside the box and discuss ideas. I really think we we need to scope out the town outside the keep before we draw any attention to ourselves. We might gain intel there that shapes our approach.

Loot

We seem to be discussing but not making progress on this. I propose the following, which is a combination of ideas.

1) We divide the older loot evenly between the 4 players present when it was earned. This may have already been done. Not sure.

2) We sell no more than 40% of the chest of gold items and divide that up evenly between all 6 of us. We can also divide up the coin that was found. The remaining 60+% of gold will be used to outfit our tower.

3) We need to decide if we are going to sell any of the items found that do not specifically fit our characters (like the shield and ring). I know they are nice to have but if they can be sold at half price the money they yield might be better.

Only after this can we know how much gold we all have to shop/ buy items.

4) We keep splitting loot evenly and assigning items to the person who gets the most benefit from it until we take the Keep. At that time we begin to try to catch up those who have fallen behind. My hope is that 1) Everyone getting money now will let us equip better for the fight at the keep and 2) that we will get enough loot at the keep to really make a difference to those who are behind.

5) We calculate equipment value at half price, which is sell value for the purpose of ranking equipment wealth. There might be a better approach to catching up than giving all the found gold to the low valued PC. I am open to ideas.

Please provide thoughts to this and either vote it up or down.

Well there is an unclaimed ring of protection on the loot spreadsheet, that I was planning to take for R'yzzntyg or Ajikisshochraos.

No, you should have the ring. Protection is harder to come by for caster-types, and a Ring of Protection is a good one to start with.

Loot

We seem to be discussing but not making progress on this. I propose the following, which is a combination of ideas.

1) We divide the older loot evenly between the 4 players present when it was earned. This may have already been done. Not sure.

2) We sell no more than 40% of the chest of gold items and divide that up evenly between all 6 of us. We can also divide up the coin that was found. The remaining 60+% of gold will be used to outfit our tower.

3) We need to decide if we are going to sell any of the items found that do not specifically fit our characters (like the shield and ring). I know they are nice to have but if they can be sold at half price the money they yield might be better.

Only after this can we know how much gold we all have to shop/ buy items.

4) We keep splitting loot evenly and assigning items to the person who gets the most benefit from it until we take the Keep. At that time we begin to try to catch up those who have fallen behind. My hope is that 1) Everyone getting money now will let us equip better for the fight at the keep and 2) that we will get enough loot at the keep to really make a difference to those who are behind.

5) We calculate equipment value at half price, which is sell value for the purpose of ranking equipment wealth. There might be a better approach to catching up than giving all the found gold to the low valued PC. I am open to ideas.

Please provide thoughts to this and either vote it up or down.

All of this sounds reasonable. I don't see anything I object to, at least on a first read of the terms.

I like Stans plans. We can sell the items, and while there people can snoop around the town to get some info.

At the same time, Vinnick can remain at the tower/keep to keep tabs on things and work on his crafting and/or do some research if possible.

Totally reasonable concerning loot.

So, very "playing it safe" suggestion:

Make one tour from base to Freedom town, from there to good castle from there to home, purchase and sell items, as if we were an adventuring group that found stuff at freedom town, search for possible cultists their to recruit, approach castle, doing some intel that is "legal".
With legal I mean straight up walking in, possible hoping to purchase scrolls of restoration/prot from disease etc., exactly the type of thing that adventurers would be hoping to buy, spreading no information on our new home for now. Always nice to know where the healers live and if the scroll reposiory is by chance flammable right?
Ask politely if the authorities wish to have anything discovered or double checked in particular, that could actually tipp us off if they already know anything about us.

After no less then 2 hours in castletown, return to "adventuring", be back mildly before Thorn gets there.

As we are not aiming to initiate hostilities, in either location, this should probably be relatively safe.

Thoughts?

I vote for the loot Idea Stan.

As for the plan I think traveling back is a bit of a waste, at the very least a team could spend time scouting while “camping” nearby to start getting an idea for patrols or just getting a lay of the land. I don’t believe we have to worry to much about immediately being spotted. At this point I think simply deciding on a party split or not is the next step. We have a few different ideas for what to do when we get there but very little information.

Farholde is the town closest to the keep and would be a excellent place to go to gain Intel on the keep itself the keep is however only open go people with official business and not open to the public.

Do we know anything about what sort of official business, or what type of documentation is needed to get past the gate, or is that the sort of intel we would have to learn in town?

So, we could reach Farnholde (which I think is on the other side of the castle from us) without going through the castle, but an army as a plot conceit could not, is this correct?

That is something you could learn in town. And yes you can reach the town whiteout entering the castle. The keep guards the only bridge across the river for miles around but I'm sure you can find a way to cross whiteout using the bridge.

My preference would be for the away team, I would hand over my 2 vials of shadowblood to Vinnick for time being. They are very very illegal, and I am not going to use them, as they are mostly for the ritual use.

I also question their utility for poisoning enemies, its needs to be drunk, so I cant exactly coat my weapon with it, and the effect is instant so it is not something slow working insiduious that I could like, dump in the guards stew pot and poison all of them because the "somethings wrong with the stew effect is fairly instant.

I would say R'yzzntyg with Ajikisshochraos remains at the fortress, considering she is kobold/lizardfolk and the authorities may have spies in the freetown on a look out for a group possibly matching the original party.

They on the other hand can look at the chest below, and do scouting. she could also contact the druid order to obtain information regarding the castle, plus information regarding the treant group.

She would just give one her shopping list, plus the gold.

If everyone is fine with this idea, then I will post in the game thread.

Just wondering id Vinnick could craft the two drake accessories, then no need to try to buy them.

Plotting time!

Several possible risk reward options:

Catching up. There remains some bookkeeping before we spend money. I totaled up everything on the loot sheet prior to our new members joining up except the darkwood flute. Not counting this flute the cut split 4 ways is 6539. If Slid took his share before departing its 5231. Note that I corrected the mostly rounded down values to actual values and then divided those values in half for sale price. If our GM can provide an iron wood flute price and chime in on the "Does Slid get a share" issue then we can finalize and clear that part of the loot sheet.

On top of that I believe we each had our own chest of 5000 GP. And we are carrying with us a yet-to-be-determiined % of gold serving-ware with a total list price of 100K. Note that we expect this will sell for between 40 and 60% of the total value. Splitting the difference we have an heavy 50K in gold, the lion's share needing to be saved for setting up "house". The most I think we should bring to town is 40% and would feel better with closer to 20% knowing that the more we bring the more attention we get and the less we are likely to get of its retail value.

Thoughts and comments welcome.

Fully on board with only carrying 20% with us.

Possibly offer a "loan" to freetown leadership?

I agree with 20% (quick maths ways this is 10k in gold ware) I’d rather invest in the base than loot. As for the town, would Alexander share this information gained? Maybe I could provide some information on the orcs as well, Casta has some dealings and experience with them, or with a a recall knowledge.

As for plans, I think gaining the town as Allie’s only helps so much. We don’t wanna endanger the army much at all so we can take the fort. If we can assimilate the orcs we should but I don’t see a way of doing that without taking up more time. Idk if we wanna risk burning time even more time on this.

Alexandr would certainly share this information after the 2 hours, I think everyone in the away team is currently on their own exploring?

All plots are of course totally optional :).

I think finding out how much the cleft heads want without committing to aiding the town is reasonable and well "nice to know".

For the loot I agree with proposition. The raw gold to be used for fortress and other payments. Instead of removing the items list we simple mark the items as sold, change "To be sold" to "Sold".

R'yzzntyg will use her druid connections to obtain information regarding the castle, though it can take 1d6 (GM roll) days to get response.

letting you all know that I've come down with a case of the covid and will likely be down and out for a few days.

Get better! May your sense of taste be unimpeded!

Yikes! Here's hoping is is mild and of short duration.

Best wishes for a mild case and a quick recovery!

Hope for quick recovery. Having COVID is rather annoying.

Just a heads up I’ll be gone for the next few months due to a deployment. I should be ok once I settle in at our duty location. Expected time I’m back is around the first week couple weeks of September. I’ll post here before hopping into the main channel again.

I'm around if you guys wanna continue. Feeling better now. Symptoms have mostly gone.

Always ready for villainy.

I am mostly online, except for trips to wilderness.

Yep. Waiting for you on a couple loot questions DireMerc. See above.

And very glad you are feeling better.

If you could, a few spells I'd like to pick up to add to my spellbook-
Nauseating Cloud
Unflappable Mien
Appearance of life (unlikely to find)

A yes no need to give Slid a share.

The flute is worth 250 gp.

Excellent. The the cut for each of the 4 original PC is 6601.5, plus the 5k from the chests for a total of 11601.5. That is a reasonable amount of gold. Hope we can spend some of it in the town. :)