In the shadow of the Tower (Inactive)

Game Master Giant Halfling

Welcome, Maximus and Gaius!

I know we have a few things to straighten out, and I don’t want you to feel too rushed, but the PCs you’ll be joining are in the best possible spot they’ll ever be in to meet up with you so I’d like to get to them as soon as we possibly can. To that end, a lot of the background quest we’re going to do sort of more as narration than actual quest. I apologize for that but once you meet up with the others we’ll be right back to a more typical style.

In terms of your crunch, both of your builds seemed solid. I haven’t actually audited them yet, but I will (hopefully today). If you have any questions about purchases or anything please don’t hesitate to let me know.

As for fluff… I’d like you both to be from Estria, a relatively small city-state on the south side of the Ironspine Mountains (the huge mountain range that runs across the continent), near their western edge. My thought is that Gaius’ uncle has/had a school there that trained boys in combat, with a focus on fighting with a sword and shield, and both of you were pupils of his at the same time. You bonded over your training and were friends but lost touch as you got older and Gaius had official duties to tend to and Maximus left for Korryn. The army in Korryn is as much citywatch as it is normal army so ‘Sergeant Benedictus’ was leading a patrol in the Tower district when he spotted his old friend Gaius looking around. I’m imagining that would have been just a day or two before we start. After catching up with each other, you went to see the Bookkeeper together with the plan of undertaking the quest to gain entry together assuming you’re both found worthy. Is that acceptable to both of you?

@Gaius- you said you were flexible about your background… I hope you meant it. I don’t want any huge changes, but there’s two things I’d like to change. First, there aren’t generally any kingdoms that send someone into the Tower every New Tran. People powerful enough to get in are uncommon enough that they’re a valuable commodity, too valuable to routinely send away. Now, a single king, on the other hand, could easily become obsessed with the idea and send someone every time (quite possibly against the counsel of his advisors). That would be the case here, I think; so, it wouldn’t be a centuries old tradition but something this particular king has been doing since he took power (probably starting with your father). Also, I can accommodate one family member that already entered, but not two. So, my thought is that your father entered as you wrote, 18 years ago, but 9 years ago your older sister failed to complete the quest on time and wasn’t able to enter. She hoped to finish the quest and enter the next time (now) instead but the king told her that because she already failed the honor would pass to you. The upside to that (assuming you’re cool with it) is that your sister can pass on some information about the quest before you start.

I think that’s plenty to start with. Again, welcome, and I’m looking forward to gaming with you. Oh, and if you’re comfortably with giving out a small amount of semi-personal information please feel free to introduce yourselves as well (I’m a long time RPer who’s mostly played D&D and Pathfinder, though I have played in a few other systems over the years including Palladium, WhiteWolf/Storyteller, and Gurps. I started doing PbP a few years ago when I moved away from my TT group and I’ve been pretty active on these boards for a year or so now. Two of the other PCs are actually RL friends from that old TT group, lol.)

edit: I opened the gameplay thread. Please feel free to dot and delete to add the game to your campaigns tab, but please don't start making actual posts yet.

Hi there and thank you! It's been a busy day at work, but I will respond ASAP when I get home this evening (EST).

@Poly- Great, welcome. I don't know about Maximus but I think everyone else in the game is eastern time too, lol. Also, it looks like maybe you have one unspent stat point?

@Both- It occurred to me that I maybe should offer a little more insight into how the background quest works while we're getting set up. You can begin the quest any time (once the Bookkeeper deems you worthy) but you can only actually enter the Tower during the New Tran festival (which happens once every 9 years). Because of this, some people may finish the quest and have to waits for years to enter while others may be racing to try to finish it in time. You two will be more in the latter camp, although thanks to a warning from Gaius' sister (assuming he's comfortable with that change to his background) you have a sense or urgency about getting started and should have enough time to finish before the festival.

Oh well that's interesting. I had started out:

Str 16 +2 race [10]
Dex 13 +1 4th +2 abp [3]
Con 13 +1 8th [3]
Int 12 +2 abp [2]
Wis 12 [2]
Cha 12 +2 race [2]

Which I now see is less efficient than your distribution! I'll play around a bit with it.

I have one more meeting in 15 minutes (long day) and then I'll get to this!

Hi polyfrequencies, I'm John who plays the Posfurore twins, Seth and Lyra, in the game. Very glad you could join us in our endeavors to figure out the big towering puzzle we are in. :)

So after some time to review, I'm good with all of these changes/additions, from the uncle with the school, to the prior-and-renewed friendship with Maximus, and the happiness that is that Gaius' sister is still around after failing to complete her quest in time!

It also fits well with my initial idea that the King of Estria is a bit...obsessive. Having a sister around with some sense of how things go is a great boon. A bit less tragic backstory with more nuance. I like it.

As for the unspent stat point, in the interest of balance (and just in case I ever decide to take on a Style feat), I'll boost his starting Wisdom to 13. I thought about dropping Wisdom to 10 to boost Strength a bit more (to a 19, ready to jump to a 20 at Level 12), but I like having a decent enough Will save with such a low Fort. It's refreshing building something with no dump stats.

Oh, and I'll switch my languages up slightly to Common, Vitolian, Tel'Aeth, and Elven. For some reason, I missed your Languages link until now. Sorry, Tengwae! Maybe I'll pick you up on my next Background skills boost.

Hello to John as well! This looks like fun lore, and it'll be the first time that I have explored lore outside of Golarion (within the Pathfinder system) in quite some time.

For me--I started doing PbP about 20 years ago or so. All system-agnostic/non-existent, just focused on interesting collaborative storytelling. It was a blast creating worlds with people, both as a GM and as a player. It actually took me a while to get into actual TTRPGs, but a friend of mine during grad school invited me to his table to do a War for the Crown campaign. That's currently on hiatus, unfortunately. But my experience has since expanded to other systems like Monster of the Week, Star Wars Saga Edition, Stars Without Number, Dialect, and maybe one or two others I've forgotten. I also picked PbP & PbD up in the last several months since my regular campaign went on an unexpected hiatus.

Real world me is a PhD student slogging through data collection during a pandemic. It's bliss to take a break from academic writing and enjoy something more stylistically relaxed where I have a chance of putting the smack down on a mythical beast.

Okay, now that I've found the right station, back to our regularly scheduled programming... ;)

Welcome, sir. Happy to have you join. I greatly enjoyed the back and forth between Maximus and his brother.

Lol! Thanks. I had a lot of fun with that.

@John Gs: I gotta say, the angle you got going with the vigilante is pretty freaking cool. Split personality? Or is it simply two identities? Man that's brilliant. I've never played a vigilante, but man if I ever do, I may steal your idea. ;)

lol- he doesn't actually know for sure whether they're crazy or legitimately two people sharing one body.

Of more immediate concern though, I'd like to get gameplay going tomorrow if you'll both be ready? Javell, are you good with the background tweaks/connection that I suggested in the initial post here? Do either of you have any questions or anything you need to figure out before we start moving?

I am CST.

@Arbiter: Per the fluff: I think that's brilliant! That rolls really smooth. I like it.

I do have a question about the ABP. Currently the ABP is at +2 for weapons. Is it possible to add something like... flaming or frost or heck, a +1 special ability of any type to weapons?

Also, I must have totally missed that language link. I DEFINITELY should have Vitolian in there. I'm going to have to get that fixed up for sure.

Yep. Ready to roll. Mainly I just want to get the languages squared away but that's it. Regardless of how the "weapons" question plays out, I'm not changing anything with that at this time. If it is possible to add something like that, it'll be later down the road. Not interested in that at this time.

Thank you. :) And feel free, all ideas on the boards are public domain I'd assume. But if you do, ping me on it so I can see what twists you come up with.

And hello, polyfrequencies! When I saw your character's name I said to myself, "Ha! That's awesome. He's rolling with Caesar's name." I thought that was pretty cool.

You guys get your regional language (Vitolian) and common (the language of Korryn) for free. All the other regional languages are available to take as bonus languages (and most of them have an old version you could potentially take).

The rules for taking something like flaming are... less than ideal, IMO. I’m looking at ideas for making that work better in the future but haven’t settled on anything yet. So, it will be possible at some point but I’d prefer not to implement it yet, if that’s alright.

Thank you. :) And feel free, all ideas on the boards are public domain I'd assume. But if you do, ping me on it so I can see what twists you come up with.

Oh absolutely! Most definitely.

You guys get your regional language (Vitolian) and common (the language of Korryn) for free. All the other regional languages are available to take as bonus languages (and most of them have an old version you could potentially take).

The rules for taking something like flaming are... less than ideal, IMO. I’m looking at ideas for making that work better in the future but haven’t settled on anything yet. So, it will be possible at some point but I’d prefer not to implement it yet, if that’s alright.

Works for me. Easy enough. Less decision making for me in that regard. :)

Javell: on the fun side, Gaius can just *give* you a +1 ability (from my limited list). It depends on whether we're going for nova-the-fighter or spread-out-the-wealth strategies at any given time. Brothers in arms and all.

I was also more aping Gaius Baltar from Battlestar Galactica, but I will happily go full Caesar.

I didn't realize we got the regional for free, too! But that does make sense. That means that with 1 rank in Linguistics and +2 Int, I should have five. Tengwae is back on the menu! Or do I want Elven? No, I'll stick with Tengwae.

Also, agreed John Gs re: the vigilante twins! I found the main thread and started scanning through a bit. Vigilante is such a fun class. This looks like it'll be a blast!

I'm ready to dive in! There was about 35,000 gp more worth of items that I was looking at (as always), but this seems good for now.

I'll make my alias to get everything official and go from there!

Welcome polyfrequencies & Javell! Looking forward to gaming with you both.

Great. In that case I’ll get the first gameplay post up probably in the morning and you can both jump in as soon as your aliases are ready. Since you’ve found the main thread, I’ll ask that you set up your banners like they have (with helpful info like hp, ac, saves, etc), and also that you not look at the other characters or old gameplay posts too much yet... I’d like for some things to be a surprise.

Also, as I said in recruitment, we’re going to be racing through a very abridged version of the background quest, so that’s going to feel a little weird I think. I apologize for that but it was the best way I could think of to do it. So the feel is sort of going to be like a choose your own adventure book if you remember those at all. I’ll narrate more of the story than usual and basically boil the important decisions down to a choice at the end of the posts. This will rob you of some of your autonomy, which I feel bad about, but I promise that as soon as we catch up with everyone you’ll be free to explore and experiment and ask whoever you want whatever you want. And I don’t want you to feel completely powerless even while we’re racing, so please feel free to mention (either in spoilers or in discussion) things that you might have wanted to do or try but weren’t given the option to and I’ll try to tack on brief side stories for that.

Does that all make sense? Are we all comfortable with it?

Let's quest!

Battlestar Galactica from the 70's? Or the newer version? I ask because that name just doesn't ring a bell to me.

I've never seen the newest one. But I grew up watching the 70's one in the 80's. But it has been FOR-EV-OR since I've seen it so I wouldn't be surprised if it was from the original.

Hello, goodwicki! Interesting name you got there. And I just want to say thanks. Thanks for nothing. Because now, I cannot get this SONG (and/or possibly its other renditions) out of mind. Appreciate that. *he says with a glare* ;)

Funny enough, there's a buddy of mine at work that LOVES to throw out a random string of words and let me tell you, there is a song about EVERYTHING. Then *I* get stuck singing them. And he's like, "I got him. I got him." :)

Great. In that case I’ll get the first gameplay post up probably in the morning and you can both jump in as soon as your aliases are ready. Since you’ve found the main thread, I’ll ask that you set up your banners like they have (with helpful info like hp, ac, saves, etc), and also that you not look at the other characters or old gameplay posts too much yet... I’d like for some things to be a surprise.

Also, as I said in recruitment, we’re going to be racing through a very abridged version of the background quest, so that’s going to feel a little weird I think. I apologize for that but it was the best way I could think of to do it. So the feel is sort of going to be like a choose your own adventure book if you remember those at all. I’ll narrate more of the story than usual and basically boil the important decisions down to a choice at the end of the posts. This will rob you of some of your autonomy, which I feel bad about, but I promise that as soon as we catch up with everyone you’ll be free to explore and experiment and ask whoever you want whatever you want. And I don’t want you to feel completely powerless even while we’re racing, so please feel free to mention (either in spoilers or in discussion) things that you might have wanted to do or try but weren’t given the option to and I’ll try to tack on brief side stories for that.

Does that all make sense? Are we all comfortable with it?

Heck yeah! It's all good to me, bud. No worries whatsoever. And I remember those books. Man did I stink at those. :P

I remember those books. Man did I stink at those. :P

Uh-oh, lol.

Sorry I'm late to the welcome wagon! I worked a side job after work last night and crashed when I got home. Glad you're both here!

Unless I missed something, I believe I'm ready to rumble!

Also yes, definitely the new Battlestar Galactica. I've actually never seen the 70s version, but the 2004 is definitely one of my favorite series of all time.

The metamorphosis Gius goes through during the course of the series is remarkable.

Right, though? Quite the arc!

Lol, I almost said something about how much Joe/Gavin likes that series too.

More importantly, gameplay is officially underway!

Womp womp, I looked at the map quickly at work earlier and totally fell for the east-west nonsense. I swear I know the difference between East and West. But it's now semi-canon that Gaius might not. Though to be fair, with a Survival of +1, I'm not surprised even without a roll.

Looks fondly at my Level 1 druid who has a +10 in Survival.

Lol- Easthill being to your west is a little bit confusing. I added the map from Tullia to the campaign description, so now it'll show up at the top of every page (and in your campaign tab, iirc). That'll probably be better for you to use than the version linked in my banner (which doesn't include Easthill, or the roads).

@Gaius: Man those are good questions. Unfortunately I'll have to get to them tomorrow. It's late for me here and I've got to turn in. I'm beat.

Will catch you 'on the morrow'. ;)

Ooh, a bag of holding *on top* of my handy haversack? Yes please and thank you!

I love handy haversacks but they don't really have enough storage for everything you need for a journey like this. Its about 1300 miles just to follow the road to the first anchor, and (depending on the routes you take) that will very likely be the shortest leg of the trip. Actually, I should have included this in my gameplay post but I forgot: to reach the western Anchor in 'only' 26 days, you're hustling for the first hour and the last hour every day (and going to bed fatigued).

Hmm... actually, I have a question for you both... the first trial has several important decisions to make and ideally I'd like to pause narration at each one and let you decide before moving on, but (in the interest of catching up with the group as quickly as possible) I really don't want to spend a full week on this; I know I only asked for you to strive for 1 game play post per day, but do you think we might be able to squeeze in a few each day for the next couple of days? If not, that's fine I'll pose all the decisions in a single post and you can learn the consequences of them all at once after you've made them, but I think it would be more fun/interesting to do it the long way if you both think you can manage it?

I'd like to endeavor for a few posts a day over the next couple of days! Today I was in Zoom calls that actually demanded my full (or near full) attention for about five hours, and I was trying to get a little bit of actual work done besides that. So this is unfortunately the first moment I've had a chance to check the boards all day! Tomorrow and Friday should be much easier with breaks, and I'm usually haunting the boards over the weekends anyway.

Cool, thanks Poly. I don’t want Max/Javell to feel pressured at all, since he only signed up for 1/day, so we’ll wait and see what his availability looks like and go from there.

I am laughing that my very first attempt at casting a spell juts up against arcane spell failure, which will be absolutely resolved at Level 10 but is stuck now. I almost took the Arcane Armor Training feat to start, with the intent to train out of it at 10th level. Now I wish I had. 15% seems so small until you roll a 14.

*Shakes fists feebly at Nivi Rhombodazzle*

Hahaha, nice

Yeah I've got no problem posting more than once a day.

The only shtick with that is, my posting time is typically after 6:00pm CST. Just depends on my day at work. I pretty much can't post any earlier than 6 unless I get the day off or have a REALLY easy day. It's actually impossible for me to post from work. And I mean that literally. :P

The weekends I can post plenty. But for any of us that have been on these boards long enough know that the weekends are the "days off" for the boards for the most part. And for obvious reasons of course.

But posting at night and on weekends I can manage multiple times, no prob.

First off, that's awesome news, Javell! I'll do my best to keep an eye on the thread and post updates as often you're both able to get to them.

Second, more good news for Gaius- mithril breastplate counts as light armor, so bards can cast in it with no chance of arcane spell failure. That means your spell went off without a hitch.

Boooo! Boooo to the spell going off without a hitch! (I really liked laughing at him). ;D

Oh happy day!

Should we keep everything spoilered? Or does it matter?

Since Ignatius went unspoilered, I went ahead and rolled that way too.

I find it interesting the different ways we approach this thing. :)

Okay, got to turn in. To be continued until tomorrow, folks. Same Bat time, same Bat channel. ;)

Oh, I should have spoilered! Sorry about that.

Sorry I didn’t answer sooner... I know this makes me sound like an old man but I fell asleep on the couch last night while watching TV (about an hour or so earlier than usual) so I’m just seeing these now.

I don’t mind either way on whether you both use spoilers, just try not to be influenced by each other because the anchor has separated you for a reason.

Javell- as I said in the ooc part of your spoiler, there’s nothing hidden so your perception check reveals nothing new. It’s unclear to Maximus exactly what he has to do, but in the interest of keeping us moving I’ll confirm that you have to pick one.

I’ll post results after you’ve both chosen.

I was figuring as much but I thought I'd double check just in case.

Man I really wanted to snag that lightning. But I was torn between the two. The iron, I felt, just fit him better.

That's the main reason I didn't snag the lightning. Because *I* wanted to snag the lightning because lightning is cool. :) I'm not so sure it fits him.

Of course, if all my metal rusts away now, I'm gonna be kicking myself for that stupid decision. :P

I'm quite curious what our soon-to-be companions chose as well! This is delightful.

This is pretty dang fun. I feel like I'm choosing wrongity wrong wrong though. :P

And these choices are tough too. So many tough calls to make.

Edit: And I REALLY liked the 'gathered people eating and drinking in the great hall' relief. That was a super tough call for me.