Volcano's Land - Mercury Morn

Game Master Miner Cotren

As we are putting together backstory, I'd much prefer for Gabriel and Abnaki to know (and be friends with) the other long-time members (Phon Vos and Osna). We'll work it all out over the next few days.

I exist! Let us learn how we were secretly your best friends this whole time.

2 quick things Abnaki -

1) I think I want Power of Suggestion swapped for a different trait :)

2) Could you update your tagline to look something like this?

Thanks!

Actually 3) - the d' at the beginning of your name is more of a "real world" Italian thing - if you want to have a father (or come from a background) from a noble family, the v' honorific is used in this world. I think you can still change your name as long as you haven't posted 10 times.

Since Gabriel and Abnaki have both been with the Happy Swords for some time, and the Swords have been marching near and around Hearth, I will tell the most important events from Hearth's perspective.

4 MONTHS AGO
--There was an attack on the Grand Temple by darkspawn, an unprecedented event

--A band of warriors rose to the occasion - they were immune to the infecting touch of the darkspawn, and defeated them. They were hailed as the Blessed - a female sylph paladin with a phoenix familiar; a somewhat savage fey-ailgned female oread bloodrager; and a gaunt male sylph, an alchemist by trade but lately taken to fiery sorcery in the Cauldron Lady's name (rumored that he has grown Efreeti horns, as well) ; and a dead undine no one really knows much about.

3 MONTHS AGO
--Top members of Inquisition--for unknown reasons to this day--attacked the Blessed, but he Blessed (in addition to some fanatic guards, now called the Temple Guard) repelled them.

--All High Inquisitors are either dead or possibly in hiding.

--During this chaos, the lower ranks of the Inquisition were slaughtered in an attempt to profane the weapon-blessings of priests. The Inquisition is essentially gone.

--In the vacuum of power, the High Council (only a minor advisor to the Inquistion until now) has risen to run the city. Three of the Blessed are on the Council (the fourth is dead). A young dragon (from the plane of the fire god, the first dragon seen since the gods began to slumber) also sits on the council.

2 MONTHS AGO

A strange Smiling crescent appears in the black, dead Sky, directly above the far city of Light.

A new god.

The scant news out of the city of Light comes from witches and priests who barely spelled themselves away in time, or various elens who fled from farther away. They all say the same: all sylphs who bathed in that silver Moonlight were turned mad as jesters, all following a strange dance.

1 MONTH AGO

Plans are made for the 3 leaders of the Army in Forge to meet in Hearth to discuss plans for the situation in Light.

TODAY

Your captain is dead, murdered by a negligent young noble who decided to experiment in magic he didn's understand. Some of you just came back from meeting with a strange two-headed snake (these are called Salamanders). The creature seems to hint that the entire race of Salamanders (who hail from the plane of fire) are also enemies of Moon.

Ok, in Gameplay we are eating around a table, broth, meat, fish, rocks, take your pick. This is a great time to introduce our two new characters!

Gabriel, you and Osna are both rogue-type characters, so we're going off the assumption that you know each other and have worked on jobs for the Happy Swords in the past. I hope Osna's player will be back soon, but for now I am botting him,

Abnaki, as you are introducing your character both in Discussion and in Gameplay, let's go with you and Phon Vos having some shared work or campaigns of the past, etc with the Happy Swords.

Alright sounds good! I've updated my name, tagline, and traits with the infinitely more boring, but much less ridiculous armor expert trait!

Gotcha bossman

Apologies for all the NPCs :) I've had a few players drop without warning in the last few months, so I want to keep the characters around until I find a way to write them out of the narrative.

My plan is to let us RP over the weekend, then a combat right out of the gate so everyone can make sure their characters are functioning as expected. I'm open to changes in characters sheets this early in the process.

Is it common to know that the captain is dead at this point?

Yes. Her second-in-command Fillipo assumed command yesterday. Very few know the cause of death.

Let me know if everyone is ready for the introductory scene to be done. If there are no other plans on the table right now, I'm going to assume the group is going along with Osna (but feel free to say otherwise!)

I'll let the scene sit for tonight - anyone who hasn't had a chance to post in the last day may do so if they wish. I'll fast forward to "ingame" evening when I post "real life" tomorrow.

Phon Vos - I botted you since it was an easy and effective thing to do in the surprise round to get rolling. Let me know if it was reasonable!

BATTLE MAP --

please check out the link at the top of this page (and the Gameplay page) -- that is always the link I use for the current battlemap.

Gabriel and Abnaki, please pick a color for your token when you take a look at the map. You should have editing privileges.

If I end up not being able to post tomorrow, my plan is to draw my longspear from off my back as a move action, and begin performing, which should give +3 to hit and damage for inspire courage, +2 to hit and damage from flagbearer, and -2 to the foe's AC from the Tremor ability (Assuming they are touching the ground) for a total of +5 to hit and damage, and -2 to all foes within 30ft.

Absolutely reasonable, she can buff as a Swift action so it makes no sense for her to cast things otherwise until she knows the enemy (or sees it).

Also I will be away for my birthday until Tuesday, might be able to get a post here and there but please continue without me (and spend charges from the Wand of Cure Light Wounds as needed please). If something really dangerous gets cast on an ally (Dominate, Hold, etc), she has a Targeted Dispel Magic at a +9 total by expending 2 Fervor.

I'll get to color as stuff asap, but Gabriel's general plan is draw swords and attack, flank where possible to add sneak attack. Very simple game plan lol

Samen, to clarify -- your dash + attack was successful, and since I am slightly fluid when it comes to initiative order, I decided you attack happened first, then the shaman directed the mud spell -- so you've had your attack already. You can try to get out of grapple next round.

Abnaki - two quick items about your bardic performance:

1) Shouldn't inspire courage only be +3 hit/damage at your level?

2) Re: tremor (the ability that subtracts AC from enemies). This is a separate option to use with your performance, right? (just like countersong, fascinate, etc are separate options that canot be used together?)

No worries! I've got a bunch of cool abilities, working in tandem! Base inspire courage is +2 at this level

And of course:

This is my real in combat use, most of my other abilities are either buffing, or various different illusions.

Got it! I thought I understood these abilities during character creation, but here is my current understanding:

1) ATTACK BONUSES

The Flagbearer feat, Banner of Kings Effect, and Inspire Courage are all morale bonuses, so do not stack:

--The +1 from Flag bearer
--Becomes a +2 from Banner of Kings
--AND your Inspire Courage (base +2)

None of those stack.

The good news is:

--A +3 to attack, damage,
and saves vs fear // mind affecting spells (I'm expanding this from only fear/ charm, as a bonus for having the Flagbearer and Banner)
to you AND allies within 30 feet

2) TREMOR AS SEPARATE

Being that Tremor replaces Countersong (a separate performance) and uses language like "as another performance, you may..."

So I am ruling that Tremor is a separate performance. However, I also think this sucks, because minus AC is strictly worse than doing +3 to hit.

SO! I will say this:

--If you wish to activate BOTH inspire courage AND Tremor, you must:

a) Spend a full round action starting them

b) Spend a full-round action maintaining both, and take no other actions (including moving). BOTH will have an effect of 30 feet (the Inspire Courage for allies and Tremor for enemies)

That makes the archetype a little better - I always try to make flavorful options more fun and versatile.

If that's your final ruling as a DM, I totally accept that! Let me just have one last crack at making my case! For inspire courage, the bonus to hit and damage is a competence bonus, not a morale bonus. I always forget that as well, it really feels like it should be a morale bonus.

As for tremors, the only thing I have to go on is the language in the ability that says specifically, "As part of another bardic performance..." which indicates to me at least that it is an augmentation of the usual bardic performance rules. It is a strong close quarters option for sure, but considering that normal bardic performance has a rather arbitrary distance for the generation of it's effects and stone singers have only 30ft of range, it sort of balances out?

Anyway, at the end of the day you are the DM, and if you say that's how it works, then that's how it works!

Still contemplating -- I DID assume the bardic was morale...still contemplating...

(and as a DM, I'm always willing to listen!)

ok, I'm there, and I'd like to try it all as written before I change anything. So.

a) +3 competence from being an effective 11th lvl bard
b) +2 morale for Flag Bearer + ancient kings
c) tremor is "part of another performance", so let's see how the party does with

net +5 to atk and dmg
-2 AC to enemies (which I will keep track of)

The only restriction I want to put on is this:

---In the place where you START your performance, that's where the "Tremor" effect stays the entire time you are maintaining the song. If you want to drop your song and start it up again you can move the effect, but I want it to be mostly stationary.

The reason for this is

1) mechanical -- I don't want to track a penalty that roves around in a PbP combat

2) flavor - I think that establishing a piece of difficult ground and holding to it is more in line with the defensive nature of stone.

ok, glad we are ironing all this out at the beginning! I like how the party is shaping up. Keep talking to me about any questions, etc you have!

The PURPLE lines are my way of showing Abnaki's performance radius. I always have trouble in google drawings of accidentally picking a circle, etc on a battlefield, so I try to stay away from them. Looks like everyone in the main part of the fight is affected, but Samen is on his own for now.

So I just saw that oread has a favored class option on bard that might be of interest here, would you mind taking a look at it when you get a chance, and if you decide that it does affect the area of the performance, would it be ok if I swapped some favored classes around?

Okay so my computer literacy is lack, how does one edit color?

Left-Click on your gray circle on the map so it is selected.

Now, among the buttons on the top of the screen/ interface, there is one that looks like a paint can. Click it and choose a color! :)

I think I'll say "no" to that particular Favored Class Bonus, Abnaki. I think that keeping your powerful performance at a 30 ft radius is perfect for right now.

Abnaki, before I forget to write this down -- your banner is a big deal. It's up to you whether your CHARACTER knows that or not, but it's a banner from the ancient time of kings, when efreeti and treants and the like were still roaming the land. We'll work out more details as we go, but I want you to be thinking about it too. Since you are an oread, it could be something:

from the courts of the Fey

from an ancient oread Tribe

or something made by one of the aspects of Forest long ago

--

Again, up to you whether Abnaki knows, but since this thing is giving you everyone killer bonuses I want to acknowledge that story-wise as well.

DM, have you heard from Osna via PM recently? It's been about three weeks since he's posted, and the last thing he posted was how much he liked the game. It'd be weird to ghost a campaign right after that.

All good! I wrote into his backstory that he looted it off a cultist, and he's aware that it's magic as it's iconography changed. However it's true significance still escapes him I think!

Samen -- I have sent Osna a PM, and have not heard back. If it goes another week or two, I might have yet another Recruitment. I'm happy we have the Happy Swords as an explanation for where all these new PCs are coming from!

Alrighty, thus ends our first combat! Are your characters roughly acting as you expected? Anything minor/moderate changes you want to make before we move forward?

Also, as noted in the OOC comments in Gameplay, I'm giving 2 abandoned PCs a good reason to head up north 1) because it will be good for there to be some allies in there, and 2) I don't like botting and keeping track of that many old PCs.

Does this mean I can turn into a mudman now, or was that a different effect?

Different effect. Just a different visual for boosted strength, armor, etc.

I think we've worked out pretty much all the kinks of the bardic performance at least! That's pretty much his only combat relevancy, (although he can also cast some spells, I really thought at least one of them would fail against glitterdust!) like haste. Mostly he's a skill monkey and diplomat, with some capability to weave illusions and story together. (Check Harmonic Spell and Spell Song)

Between haste and your bonuses, you can turn Samen, Phon Vos, Gabriel, and Osna into a real force to be reckoned with. Even if Osna takes a while coming back (or doesn't come back at all), I think I'll keep him as part of the group for now -- 4 melee-ish guys (two of which have sneak attack) plus a good support character seems about right for a normal adventuring party. I think you all have enough arcane/divine odds and ends between you that you will have plenty of tools to deal with whatever shenanigans come your way.

Since you are all part of the Happy Swords and you are all high level, I imagine you would hold titles, or positions of some kind (and I hope these will be more interesting/fun than being a quartermaster, that kind of mundane thing)

Abnaki: Standard-Bearer, naturally

Osna: Head Scout

Gabriel: (unofficial) Shadowsneak, on paper you are one of Osna's lieutenant scouts

Phon Vos: Dispeller Specialist (or "magic killer" to the uneducated soldier)

Samen: Elemental Specialist (most people will still just call you a warlock)

I'm not giving you any special abilities or anything based on this, but you could probably find helpers within the camp for you speciality (so more scouts, help with elemental research occasionally, etc)

Speaking of which, Samen:

A terse message from Captain Fillipo invites you to stay on with the Happy Swords with an official commission. There is also one for Wamblee and Iniga (apparently the Captain has not heard of their departure yet)

As a DM, I'm cool with splitting the party, by the way. So for instance, whoever wants to go with Ozhna may do so, but if you have something else on your mind to do in Hearth, just let me know!

In a similar vein, now would be a good time to talk about character motivations --- you are all in the Swords, which makes it simple for you to know each other, but while we are in the "new party" stage of things, I think it would help to talk about what kind of goal you and/or your character would find interesting.

Abnaki, could you let me know what your alignment is? I can't find it. (Just collecting and organizing data on all my PCs, gotta keep those DM notes up to date!)

Samen continues to be motivated to understand elementals to better understand what makes elenity elen. To that end, learning why there has been a sudden increase in elemental activity is high on his list of objectives.

Probably NG, although I could swing either way on the Law/Chaos depending on what's needed. What's really important is the good alignment, respect to the fallen, often seeking non-violent solutions to problems, things like that. His father was an ifrit, so he's got the whole glory/honor thing, and he enjoys his work as a mercenary, but he'd like to one day utilize his mixed heritage to explore the interior of Volcano. (Oread Earth Glider + getting fire resistance through either items or class fatures.)

Very interesting - thanks for the replies so far Samen and Abnaki!

And Abnaki, that sounds perfectly reasonable as far as alignment goes.

--

I'll plan on updating either tonight or tomorrow morning with the two proposed groups, unless someone changes their mind (fine with me either way)

When I do split groups, I prefer NOT to use spoilers, simply because its a pain in the butt to find anything if everything is behind spoilers for an entire page. To make it easier on everyone, my posts will always start with the bolded name(s) of whichever group I am posting for.

This is probably a thing would would get asked around a real-life D&D table after a fight -

"Does anyone need healing?"

being that your characters would certainly feel pain from their injuries and ask for aid, please feel free to RETROACTIVELY apply any healing you think your character would have asked for.

(Wamblee, for instance, would have insisted that Samen agree to be healed after Wamblee himself got some healing attention)