The Journey of a Thousand Miles (Jade Regent AP)

Game Master Sensen

Everyone doing alright? It's been quiet for the past couple days. If you want, I'll move you on on Sunday, but I wanted to check in.

Apologies, I've been a little busy with move prep and partner being sick.

Yeah sorry, I'll try to post soon just been hard to work up the energy lately.

Depression is kicking back up and has been telling me my posts are just annoying to people/hogging attention or that people don't like my characters.

Not saying that for reassurance or anything just letting you know why I haven't been posting much lately.

Yes, I am here and ready to continue our adventure! :D

Don't say nonsense, Riftun is great and I am looking for more of your posts!

I'm also still here, just on a two week home vacation and semi busy with a lot of stuff. I'll get a round of posts out tonight.

@Riftun I'm definitely not the best writer on the site, nor the most experienced one or the one who gets around the different campaigns the most. But, for what it's worth, out of everyone I've ever been in contact with on a PBP, I think you're in the top 5% as far as writing skill and engagement goes. So, please cheer up and continue doing great things :)

I know you said you're not asking for reassurance, but I will say that I really enjoy both Riftun's and Lisa's posts, and the way you drive things forward with them. Your characters are fascinating and I don't feel they're hogging attention at all.

Oof, sorry for the delay folks. Internet up and died this morning, and only just got it back. I'll try to put up a response soon.

Thank you everyone for those really kind messages <3 I love playing with you all I've just been in a bad head-space lately but I think I'm ready to get back to posting <3

Sorry for the delay, folks, it's been a hectic day with computer troubles, unpleasant surprises, and such abound. I'm aware things are lagging at the moment, but I will do my best to hasten them along. For the moment, though, I'm exhausted, and may not be able to get up a post I'm satisfied with tonight.

That said, Riftun can tell that the red-wrapped bolt is magical. It's a +1 flaming burst bolt, and the others are masterwork cold iron. A better post will come up tomorrow, and again, I'm sorry for how slow things have been recently.

I'll give it another few hours for folks to make a decision on where to go next, otherwise I'll just assume you head up via the closest stairway and make your way to the next closest unexplored areas.

Yeah, i dont particularly mind so long as we keep heading into the unknown regions here. :)

Understood, I'll try to get a post up this evening, then.

Could we wrap up the cleaning of the fortress and resolve it narratively? It is my understanding we have achieved all the goals we had for Brinewall and the adventure is heading north. Whatever minor item or monster is still remaining probably has little impact on our story and it is keeping us away from the juicy part of the game.

We begun the campaign more than a year ago and there are 5 more books ahead, so 6 or more years looking forward if we are lucky enough. With each passing month only increasing the chances of major life changes that prevent some or all of us from continuing our joyful trip together, should we not stick to the interesting parts of the game and moving forward to completion? :)

And if there is anything relevant left we do not want to leave without happening, we can just resolve everything narratively to that point, or the GM can hand obscure curious details he want us to know but would be tedious for us to gather otherwise.

Perhaps we should put it to a vote?

That seems like the fairest way to decide :)

Up to you all. I don't mind skipping forwards, but if anyone wants to stay around for some reason, that's fine by me too.

Since there was mentioned to be one more major fight of sorts, i wouldnt mind doing that and doing the rest in narritive fashion to keep things moving. I assume we explore everything thoroughly, im fine with just being told what we can still find.

I think Andy has a good solution that should keep everyone happy :)

We all get the loot and the fun fight and we can get the rest of the story rolling faster~

Sure. I'm just mentally drained recently, so give me a bit to get things put together.

It is fine, take a breather doing something unusual that you also enjoy, mental health comes first Aganhei!

There is no rush, I just have enjoyed this game a lot so far, great people, great characters, great party interactions, in-depth and rich world detail, enemies with motivations that seem real beings..., and based on experience from success completing other APs and failure with a few other campaigns, I felt it was convenient to voice my concerns, because we are an active group and there are the strings for continuing being a complete success of a campaign :)

That image is truly unsettling, if I see that in a dark fortress in the night I will not only tremble as Yuto but run away shouting loudly immediately!!!

As about alignment, I see Yuto's neutrality more as if defending his liege might cause harm to an innocent, he will put always his liege before, but he is human and would not just stand down seeing a child whipping if it does not have a great cost to him or his liege. But I do understand your point there.

Fair enough! It's up to you with how you handle it, but right now he's LN leaning towards LG - which is perfectly fine. Heck, with the variously good Kaijitsu sisters as his lieges, they might well push him into that, if you want.

That was a great song/act, Riftun :) Now I feel a bit awkward for attacking it right before... maybe if I'd known what it was.

Also, minor thing: Teruko healed Andy back to full after the previous fight, so he should be at full health.

That is the end of combat, but I won't likely be able to get a post up this evening, because I'm drained. However, I will definitely try to put more effort in keeping us going.

Please don't burn yourself out. I think we are all committed to this game, so a slower pace at times is perfectly fine. Take rests when you need to. :)

True. Please take a rest if you need to! I'm sure we'd all rather have a break than risk you burning out and the camapign ending, should you feel that would help.

No worries Aganhei, we all have up and downs. I can assure you I have gone through all kind of different mind states during the 6 years and a half it has taken my Shackled City AP to run. From level 1 to 20. 12 full chapters! But we are done this weekend and it feels so rewarding to look back and remember the good moments and shared experience we built up.

GMing burns because it is a lot of work, and at different moments of your life other interests, or the lack of energy gets in the middle. But good news is if the campaign is interesting enough, and I think this one is, the motivation and inspiration always comes back at one point or another, or at least that has happened to me there.

It certainly requires some effort to keep going during the low points, but as Torra and Andochtuir say, a slower pace can keep up the connection alive enough for the moments of inspiration to come back. Just do not worry too much, we will keep coming back!

Best wishes!

Post should be forthcoming soon.

Gah, sorry! I'm so tired and hungry I'm reading the posts and don't even understand what's going on really >.>'

I'll post when I wake up but just, everything is crazy right now. Sorry for the delay D:

No worries. Take your time.

I'll be travelling to Portugal for the next couple of weeks, so my posting ability will be limited.

Riftun xD

Torra, coast and dusk dinners eating bacalao and listening to fados in small colonial style streets!!! Uo! Enjoy! :D

@Gameplay, Yuto cannot do that K. local!

Have fun, Torra!

I'll get a post up today, sorry for the delay.

It's fine~

Don't even worry about it ^^

Oops, sorry about that Andochtuir. I somehow totally missed that. I'll get you a quick poll of who's doubting and whatnot when I have the time, and then put some responses together with the rest of the crew's choices.

It's fine, don't worry :) We can wave it if you like and pretend he didn't ask or that he fails to influence the crowd regardless.

I've sent a message to Teruko's player, see if they're doing alright, and I'll give both them and Yuto a chance to decide for another few hours. I know Torra's in Portugal, so I've not been waiting on her as much, but if she can get a post in, so much the better.

Apologies for not posting, I still don't have internet in my new apartment and posting on my phone is horrid.

No worries! These things happen.

My next post will skip us a week ahead, so here's how we'll do things during caravan travels: Every week you choose what you'll be doing - guarding the caravan, gossiping with other travelers along the way, whatever. You also get to choose one or two NPCs with whom to spend some time with - train, flirt, learn, whatever.

Does that sound fine by you guys?

Also, Teruko hasn't responded to the message I sent her a few days ago, so she may be MIA. I'll try prodding her again tomorrow.

Works for me. It helps to keep the caravan still relevant while not halting the adventure.

Sorry been kinda busy the past couple days so posting is hard.

Riftun will spend time with Zaiobe and Kelda.

Also he wants to see if Yuto knows the art of haiku as he's heard tell that samuria often practice such things.

If so he'll practice poetry with Yuto.

He'll also swap stories with Andy but I'll do that in character xD.

Oh! I think he would have read a book or two about such a thing, but never met someone who would really teach him about it (I am not knowledgeable myself), but he will be happy to discuss the topic with Riftun and explain him whatever little he knows about it :)

Mind you, haiku isn't the only form of Japanese poetry. I imagine that Golarion in particular has some sort of elven-Minkaian hybrid poetry forms in Jinin, for example.

Sorry, I was waiting on Riftun, but then I realized Rackal'd already said what he would be doing, and now I'm not sure I'll be able to get a post up today. Sorry about that, guys.

No problem! We'll wait. Much more important to take a rest now and then and not get burned out, too.

Wont be able to post today due to weekend stuff, back tomorrow :)

So... I take it then that Teruko hasn't responded and has gone truly MIA?
Hope nothing bad happened to him/her :( Are we going to get a new person to replace her?

From a balance standpoint, Andy gets most of the condition removal eventually and could spec into some healing, but he's very slow to get them, and would miss all the divine buffs and such.

@Aganhei Sorry, reading back the discussion here it seems I need to pick 2 NPC's specifically rather than a general description of what he'd do and whom he'd spend time with? In that case I'd pick Sandru and Shalelu for this week, the latter for the training aspect of foraging and learning how to shoot the bow. The prior just for social reasons.

You don't need to pick 2 NPCs, but it'd help me get a sense of who's getting close to whom, etc.

And yes, Teruko is MIA. I'll let you all decide whether or not you want me to open a new recruitment and/or reach out to some of those who submitted last time we lost someone.

As we are still 4, I am fine with going on with the current group and hope Teruko comes back sooner than later.

That said, I understand this is a good moment to introduce a new character as we are in between adventures, thus, if you think it is better to recruit someone, I am fine with it. If Teruko comes back we might be able to run with 6 too.