How are things going? Any estimates on when we might resume?
Very very soon, I hope! My girlfriend just completed a weeklong visit.
oh and now I'm sick
Chills, nausea, headaches, sore throat. This is either going to give me a lot of alone time to work on PbPs or lead to be finally finishing a couple of the books I got for my birthday. Win-win?
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Post tomorrow!
I just want to say, I've been reading Lord of the Rings to my girlfriend lately, and I really like how "musical"/poetic this party is. It reminds me a lot of how the characters in LOTR seem to break into song at pretty much every opportunity.
We are a almost a traveling band as much as adventurers!
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I don’t read as much poetry as I ought, so I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to find snippets to put in Alaïs’ mouth, but I’ll do my best!
Oooh, if it didn’t completely throw off the tone of the campaign, I would say we should totally actually start a band!
I mean, three of us are trained in Perform, and if the others can’t be jollied into splashing some skill points and joining us on stage, we probably need crew / handlers? (Alaïs almost certainly does. I can say that even before we've found ourselves in a situation that lends itself to her going full party-girl mode. "And that's Edrukk." "What's he do?" "He makes sure the elf doesn't get too much wine. At least, not before 10 in the morning.")
Off the top of my head, we could call ourselves the Hearts and Arrows? Or, more old-timey but at the risk of sounding like a baseball team or something, the [Diamond Lake …] Brilliants? Roses? Princesses? (Yes, I did just Google gemstone cuts. :) )
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A band sounds delightful! And it's a nice built-in cover story for traveling.
And that is a good point about Tolkein's use of songs and so forth. I'm working on a fantasy setting concept for a novel series now using some of my favorite Pathfinder characters (Briar among them hehe) so I shall need to think of some of those, too....
Haven't sold my first book yet, but it's such a long process that there's no point in waiting around. There's writing to be done!
Honestly, it made me wonder why Tolkien was so preoccupied with songs, and I kind of wonder how influenced he was by the popular media of his time. He lived through the real heyday of showtunes, didn't he?
Also, that sounds like an exciting project, Hrothdane! Let me know if you ever want an extra pair of eyes. Briar is a delightful character and it would be cool to see more of her.
As for a "band", a troupe of wandering performers isn't necessarily anachronistic. :P
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He was, though I could also see him just taking the view that people in such times must know all kinds of stories and songs to entertain themselves, which I do not know enough history to dispute nor confirm lol
And thank you! I'm only using my own Pathfinder characters for inspiration, but that gives me plenty of material at this point. I have to dig into my pre-coming out stable or make new people to find men to use, but there's a couple ones I still like :D
It started out as a "what if I just write something that sounds fun to me, just put all the things I like together and try to make them work." One of my talents--at least I like to think it is one--is that I am good at taking things completely seriously and thinking through how all the systems work together. How does the ideology of a dominant religion filter down into the rest of society? How does the material economic base warp and mold the ideology to serve its ends? I love that s~*+. I had been reading The Masquerade series by Seth Dickinson, too, and was blown away at how brilliant it is, and the best art always makes me want to make some myself!
I am also free to get into adult topics like sexual content that just doesn't work in a collaborative game.
That's a great reason to start writing a book! I've actually recently started writing a book (that won't be for my usual audience) for the first time in a while, and I can neither confirm nor deny that a good 30% of the motivation for it is pure spite at still having to hear about Harry Potter in 2022. Everyone's got their reasons. ^-^
Honestly, it made me wonder why Tolkien was so preoccupied with songs, and I kind of wonder how influenced he was by the popular media of his time. He lived through the real heyday of showtunes, didn't he?
Also, that sounds like an exciting project, Hrothdane! Let me know if you ever want an extra pair of eyes. Briar is a delightful character and it would be cool to see more of her.
As for a "band", a troupe of wandering performers isn't necessarily anachronistic. :P
I wonder how much of it might be related to the whole mythopoetic angle, that Middle-earth was intended, as I (probably incorrectly) understand, at least partly as an exercise in world-building from scratch, and that meant all the stories, all the media, that would be the baseline of that world’s inhabitants’ lens on it? (And a very fine-grained one, since at some point he had some English fella manage to sail to the edge of Valinor, didn’t he?)
Which sounds, to my sleep-deprived brain, at least vaguely like what Hrothdane’s talking about.
Or, just, I wonder what I would include to try to offer a representative snapshot of a whole culture at any particular time and place? I mean, people could probably tell a lot about me from my library, but to see how it actually works, they would probably need to see what words, but also what stories, just weave in and out of life in the living, I guess.
Anyway, on the band front, I wasn’t worried about anachronism – I can easily imagine the Diamond Lake Brilliants starting out as the town wait(e)s (however it’s meant to be spelled) and then getting caught up in shenanigans – but just trying to curb my enthusiasm, since it could very easily get away from me in a way that would probably detract from the tone I think I’m getting for the game.
And it would be a quite a volte-face for Alaïs from how I understand her at the moment. “On … on stage? Making a … a spectacle of yourself? For groundlings?” Her family would have a collective heart attack. Well, maybe not quite so bad. Like I said, it would take more care than the sort of cheerful hatchet-job I’m doing on her character here. :)
This song was originally going to be based on the Barrow Wight's chant, but I realized that Down, Down to Goblin Town worked better for this situation.
I'm feeling pretty dumb. I jumped down to apply healing - but I didn't prepare any today. Can the warpriest spontaneously use a blessing to heal an ally? I haven't looked at the rules for a minute, but I don't think that's how it works...
Tell you what, it's been a long time and forgetting is understandable--go ahead and swap a slot.
Just checked and confirmed that warpriests, including forgepriests, get spontaneous casting of cure spells.
I'm a warpriest fangirl! Unless I'm misremembering, I'm pretty sure they get spontaneous casting like clerics do. Either that, or I've been playing that other character wrong all this time, who has never prepared a cure spell in her life.
Oh, and aaaa! Calistrian ninjas!
Which is not what I started out to say. Thank you for your monster, GM! I love to hate it. :)
Can we tell how many holes there are along the sides of the shaft. We know there is at least one near the top and one down on the ground near us, but can we see others? If so, how many?
There are a lot of smaller holes, but for the sake of simplicity, assume the only tunnels large enough for the creature are the ones shown on the side-view map.
FYI I've got my year 3 tenure file due in a couple of weeks, so posting is going to be slow on my end for a bit. Please bot as needed - I don't want to hold anything up. Kata will buff with lingering bard song, stab things, internally fret, rinse and repeat.
Tolkien was a linguist first. I think he was very familiar with the various language arts and their role in communicating histories and lessons, especially before reading was common. I would expect him to try to emulate that in the worlds he created.
To the matter at hand, I’m not sure where the map is…
It's in my profile bar. :)
Sorry, working on a resume--post tomorrow!
OMGS, is Alaïs really the only one of us trained in Spellcraft, with detect magic known/prepared, and not managing to roll higher than 3?
This can never get out, or her people would never let her live it down, and make gently catty remarks about the crowd she's hanging around with.
Also, somehow I've gone this long without noticing we're using background skills?
To remedy that, without, hopefully, metagaming too much, I figure I'll just splash Alaïs' first two background skill points into more performance types: (sing, dance), probably.
Briar's not had the time or opportunity to delve into the literature on magic. Good news is that we are closing in on level 2, which means more skill points!
Sometimes I screw myself on first level b/c I try to not have anything in a character's backstory that they are not mechanically capable of, which means a lot of skill points get called-for right off the bat.
Briar is definitely the type to learn once she has the opportunity and drive, which is not what I can say for all my spellcasters. I have a level 16 sorcerer who never put a point in knowledge (arcana) or spellcraft, and never will!
Oh, I’m not actually worried, just amused at the way things have turned out just this moment (especially now that the dice have turned traitor), as opposed to a bunch of games I’ve played where most everyone can take a shot at identifying a doodad, and trying to think how Alaïs would be feeling.
She’s definitely vain enough that she would want someone else to take charge so her failure could fade into the background, and I’ve imagined her as the baby in a very magical family, so it would freak her out all the more that there might not be someone to save her if she makes a spellcraftical gaffe.
Poor thing’s probably feeling a lot of pressure, is all. Omigoddess, they’re all looking at me! Why isn't anyone saying anything? And I have no clue, and they’re gonna think I’m an idiot and I’m just … I’m just going to crawl under a rock and die now.
Which … oh. Let's hope we don't run into a long streak of bad luck followed by critters offering Faustian bargains and promises that for just a little thing, she'll never have to worry about feeling foolish ever again. :/
Finishing up a cover letter, sorry for the sparse posts! I'll get something posted later today, or tomorrow if today gets away from me--Friday is also Posting Day for my work, so I may be too busy. :)
I assume the party will be leaving the Lair of the Architect and heading back to the Lair of the Laborers?
I fell and hurt my dominant hand pretty bad yesterday so i might be much slower to post for the next day or so. Thankfully i dont think there is anything broken
Aw, shoot! Feel better soon!
My girlfriend and I are looking into moving into a new place sometime over the next couple weeks, so I may be sporadic for a little while longer.
Oh no, Briar! I hope you're feeling better soon.
Congrats on the upcoming move, KC.
File submitted, buried in an avalanche of work but I'm digging out. I'll get caught up soon. Thank you all for your patience.
Best wishes on a speedy recovery, Briar!
Best wishes on a fast and efficient move, KC (I hate moving, such a PAIN.)
Congrats on digging out of the pile of paperwork, Kata!
Sorry, it's a small post, I just didn't get around to it today after all.
Oh, so I'm sick again. Just keeping things interesting, I guess. Expect posts to be about as sparse as they've been, but who knows?
Still not feeling well, but the fever broke a couple nights ago. I should be able to resume posting soon! And yes, Briar can aid Alais.
I'm feeling a lot better, and I'll try to get a post up tomorrow. :)
Glad to hear you are on the mend.
Sorry, tomorrow, I hope.
Sorry, having a bad couple of days. The stuff in Texas has me pretty shaken, and I'm refraining from shaving for a couple days so it's easier to pluck, which is pretty uncomfortable in the meantime for me. We're also poised to start the move, so I might be quiet for a bit, but I'm still here. :)
I'm doing okay now--threw in the towel and just shaved. Might still be a bit, but mostly just because it's hard to focus on anything other than the move. I really don't want to be in this place for another month.
Sorry to hear you're having a rough week. It has been tough to see all the cruelty on display in our world.
Good luck with the move.
The move has gone well! We're finally getting settled into the new place. We get chickens in a couple days, the kitchen is sorted, and we finally got the power fixed so we don't all have to live in the living room. I'll look to pick things back up by Thursday.
Glad things are getting sorted out for you. I hate, no, I loathe moving.
Woo-hoo! Happy to hear the move is going well. And chickens - how lovely! I have always wanted chickens but have been unable to make it happen (yet).
I have yet to learn the story behind it, but we are legally barred from owning fowl in the city limits here. I suspect farm animals in general are banned, but chickens and ducks are always what have come up.
Usually, specific bans like that arise due to poor wording of the original statute. In my hometown, there were specific bans against having horses, cows, sheep, donkeys, mules, pigs, and goats within the city limits. Then, people starting raising chickens, geese, turkeys, llamas, alpacas, and ostriches. At first, it was allowed to slide, but as more and more people started building coops and pens on their lots, the law was updated.
Sorry, I'm okay, I just realized I wasn't ready to get back into the swing of things yet. I'll check in again in a couple days with an update!
Two words. Duct Tape.
So, how are things? Any updates on when the game will resume?