Might and magic, Lords of the Contested Lands

Game Master Chyrone

What you know from Homm 1 & 3 is pretty much what i'm working off, supplied with homebrew. The games only cover so much on the subjects and sources of faith.

The most setting information source, would be the Wiki page.

Shaymara is, age wise, a mature adult dragon. She resides in a valley that holds the great Dragons Cliff, in western central Avlee.
She has followers among most denizens/races of Avlee, on account of her domains and her holding dear a natural environment, that very much cover nature, communities and magic. As part of the Contested Lands is populated by people of elven heritage, she has some faithful there too. She keeps mostly to the sideline when it comes to inner country affairs, but as you've experienced, she has a sympathetic heart for the lost. Rue those who violate her domain, also.

Her faithful range from magic users, to forest guardians, and in between.

@Daniel, is everything okay? Do you want us to continue with the story and finish this scene later in spoiler?

Take care of yourself Estelle.

And yes, the quests you mentioned are the ones you know of.

A fyi heads up.

It can happen that something of interest is more a risk at a level the group would be at the time. Say, you hear rumor X, and are at level 4, the task itself could be a higher risk than is comfortably safe right there and then.

Just so you aren't completely caught by surprise if things in the future are stronger than expected.

I think that we should try rescuing the lost people, but as for other things I feel like we are getting caught in sidequest hell. Do we know what will further the main storyline? I feel like that main thing is, at least for now, establishing ourselves and finding a way to earn money. Do the rest of you have other ideas about what the main story is here?

Your feeling speaks true.

As far as sidequest hell goes, ♫ fame & fortune are made through these.
Who am i, to disagree.
Travel the lands, we have no seven seas,
Many people are looking for something.♫ :)

I'm just hoping that these poor lost people are lost in nice crypts full of loot dropping monsters just at our challenge level, since loot seems to be our only income source at this time. :)

I think what will further the main questline is dealing with the goblins, since those are the ones actively plagueing the region and probably the main way to establish ourselves. As such I'd suggest going to the smaller goblin fort first. We also know for sure that goblins are somewhat in our capacity to fight and are a known threat. We don't know anything about the other locations other than that there's undead at the dwarves. I'd guess that's more dangerous than heading for the goblins first.

As a side note, I'm slightly worried that if we seek to avoid fighting the goblins at any cost, then we'll lose out on most of the potential income to repair the town. It worked out last time as they were exceedingly nice to us, but can we count on them just giving us what they have when we kindly ask them to leave or work with us to make the region safer?

I get the concern about avoiding them at any cost, but that isn't what I feel like I am doing... I am just trying to avoid attacking them without provocation and giving them a chance to do the decent thing.

If they were human bandits harassing everyone, then we might have to kill them too, but we'd at least try to talk to them first I imagine, and that's all I want. To avoid targeting them for extinction just because they are goblins, and maybe have a chance to solve the problem a different way.

Plus, we weren't able to handle the ones at the castle, so what makes you think that taking care of the problem is within our capacity, and it won't just make things worse, making humanoid-goblinoid relations worse?

I mean, if this were a video game, then someone could just say goblins are the enemy, go try to eradicate them to extinction, that's your first job. ... But I really don't know how that is going to get us an income. We don't have a friendly shopkeep paying for goblin ears or something. A better long term solution to the bandit problem is patrols and making sure that people are traveling in groups and are wary... maybe setting up waypoints where people can stop in safety so they don't have to camp along the way.

If the DM is ready to say, hey this is your first task on your main quest, and all goblins are evil, then let's just say that and move on... but it hasn't seemed that way so far.

Well, it is true that we haven't met either of the other groups of goblins yet, so we do indeed not know of any extenuating circumstances or underlying motives, if there are any. However, it has been stated multiple times by both our town and the outpost now that goblins are making the area unsafe and that they're the reasons merchants have stopped coming. Plus, that encounter where they came at us and had to be shot to withdraw doesn't give them much points in my book. Of course, that does assume these goblins belong to the groups holed up in the two forts.

I don't feel it's racist to state what we know and saw, and it happens to be goblins in this case behind it. I'm fine with giving diplomacy a try, but if they shoot us again, is there some kind of limit to your forgiveness/drive to go for peace no matter what? As it does feel kind of black and white to me with the limited info we have on the other camps. The vibe/worry I'm getting from this is that it'd be considered racist or overly agressive to act decisively based on the information we now know, and that diplomacy is the only acceptable way even if they shoot us first. But if we have *genuinely evil goblins*, I think most good characters would want to actively remove them from the land.

Unless I've been misreading what we've been told by the people, that is.

That said, Brunhild would like to try finding the missing dwarves first, which is a five day march and heads into dwarven territory as I understand it. Estelle would like to see about the smaller orc fort to the west. What do Daniel an Astella suggest as a first mission?

I would like to find the dwarves.

To hook in onto some of your concerns,

The main story quest for the moment, is renovate the castle and clearing the goblin activity.

*cough* Goblin ears collecting, how barbaric. *cough*
An interesting story related to the topic..

I would say, you have only been in 1 town. ;)

All right, thanks for the information Chyro.

Then I'll change my vote to the dwarves so that we can move out and keep things going.

I also want to note, Bandits and other criminals will receive punishment if Daniel has anything to say about it. He isn't a hard ass though, so lighter sentences would be a thing depending. So any deals with the bandit goblins or potential human bandits would involve them surrendering to the group. Afterall, if people aren't willing to accept some repercussions for their actions before turning over a new leaf, they aren't actually sorry/looking to change.

I completely agree with consequences... *if* we are in a position to dictate terms, which I think is going to require us getting more powerful than we are, and as long as we actually know who the bandits are. Right now we don't know that. The goblins we met on the road could have been bandits or defensive travelers expecting the other side to attack them, and going to a fort where they live... we have no idea if the banditry is institutionalized or just some rogue goblins (like it would be if it were humans).

If we catch them red-handed and we know they are the bad guys, then definitely consequences. It's the gray area where goblins could be good that I am concerned with. At the beginning of the game I wasn't concerned with it, and figured we could just kill them all, but when they started accusing me of speaking their language badly and being racist, then I thought about it and decided that's exactly what I was doing. So, trying not to be... learning from the contextual clues in the game itself.

If I am learning the wrong things and the point is to just go murder them all, then honestly, I am fine going back to that definition... but so far, that isn't my experience of the game.

An entire fort surrendering to 4 random people?

Huh...

;)
Just messing with you, Daniel.

I don't believe the goblins accused you of being racist? Only a vague mention that your teacher might have had a silly dislike for goblins?

It's not as bad as when you'd been taught something embarrassing without you knowing it. (I've had that twice)

Okay, I stand corrected. They didn't actually say I was racist. :)

Although would it be "speciesist" in this case?

An entire fort surrendering to 4 random people?

Huh...

;)
Just messing with you, Daniel.

I don't believe the goblins accused you of being racist? Only a vague mention that your teacher might have had a silly dislike for goblins?

It's not as bad as when you'd been taught something embarrassing without you knowing it. (I've had that twice)

*fort scene from monty python holy grail plays in head*

For the past few days I couldn't log in to paizo. Kept getting that damned error message. And yesterday went in for surgery on ankle (no walking for 6 weeks). Home now and can log in again. Sorry for my silence.

No worries. You just stay put and take it easy.

I couldn't log in on my phone for several days. It just wouldn't sign in over and over. Different phone browser worked fine, as did laptop.

So it seems there's been issues again. :)

First thing to try is deleting Paizo cookies. That's what got me back in. So, if you have a browser where you still can't log in, go into view all the cookies, search for Paizo (there should be 5 I think) and delete them all. Just make sure you know your password so you can get back in (and the cookies will be remade).

And, hope your ankle heals up nicely. Glad to have you back. :)

Safe to say that undead=evil in this game? Going with it, but if not, let me know.

These things sure are.

And i believe not all ghosts are evil. I've played a module where a ghost was the depressed spirit of a paladin. Not evil.

I know the feeling. After finishing a campaign with a lvl 17 character, going to a lvl2 monk with a 14 for the main stats gives me whiplash. ;) Also I think it is safe to assume that undead = evil. Or at the very least, mindless undead = a threat without moral consequences.

Damn, highest i ever got to was lvl 8 with 2 separate characters.

Though an important question would be this: are the undead a natural occurrence, or do they have to come from a necromancer?

An interesting question, indeed. ;)

I had a character in that same game with Brunhild. What a great game. :) Hard to start over from scratch, but also good. Sometimes it is the lower-level struggle that really makes or breaks your character and makes a good story.

Sorry for the disappearance, I lost access to my account for a bit, and with a plethora of other things going on the past week or so didn't feel like dedicating the time/frustration to getting it back. I am. however, back now.

As language, the stout dwarves speak Gaelic. :)

Stone City dwarves speak Scottish Gaelic, but this dwarf speaks Irish. It shares distant origin of speech, but different enough to each be their own.
Their common is also just like Scottish and Irish accents.

It seems loch brunhild will need tae start talkin' wi' a scottish acccent. It micht nae be easy, but it is whit it is! fa am Ah tae say nae tae whit is reit?

Jus' fer clarity, misses Blackarrow. Yer previous way of speech wasn' wrong, accents can be a very subtle thing. Serena's accent isn't thick either, after all.

It's more an indication to the variety between the two dwarven peoples.

I've met people during my holidays over the past, from both countries.
Some of them had a clear thick accent in some words, while others had but a subtle way of pronouncing the 'r'. So don't let the info tell you how Brunhild's way of talking has to be, is what i'm saying.

A rough map of Erathia's territories and Harmondale/The contested lands therein, has been added on the slides.

A rough estimation for distance, 2 days on foot is the distance between Harmondale's Western and Central dot. (Welnin & Fairhaven)
But on the map it is impossible to accurately display that distance.

Some territories you're likely best through by horsepower. A coach (if you've money to spare) travels twice as fast as by foot, and most settlements connect between its nearest neighboring settlement by road. Stops and such included, of course.

Thick dots are a territory's main settlement. The smaller are villages or towns, of various sizes. Some natural barriers are not yet displayed, such as mountain ranges and forest borders. Aside from the brown line, which represents a mountain range adjacent to the Barrow Downs and part of Harmondale.

Odd. Not sure why there were so many typo's in the last post. It seemed to look good on the preview...

@ Daniel,

If you were looking for a summary, the info slides link is under my header.

Thanks, and sorry, time got away from me due to work.

Astella & Estelle,

What would have been your social circles at home?
In regards to its peoples.

Estelle was raised among the clergy prior to the war. At her low rank she was probably doing simple chores and errants for the temple and would have come in frequent contact with the local common humanoid AvLee inhabitants; Centaurs, dwarves and elves. Later, when Flynn came along, I could see her coming out of her shell more and joining hunts or foraging trips into the forests. She probably liked taking care of the Pegasi at the enchanted springs, too. In the end, her social circle was probably a mixture of church goers, hunters/foresters and animal caregivers.

Is that specific enough or should it be more concrete?

Oh man, if I could get Daniel on a pegasus divine bond mount.

Humans and elves for the most part, although I don't think she has had much of a social circle since she lost her parents... she was first intent on revenge, and after that she was just scraping by, singing to be able to eat and trying to live in a home that had been looted and partially burned. Maybe the people at the inn where she sang... whoever would have been welcome there would be who she interacted with.

Oh man, if I could get Daniel on a pegasus divine bond mount.

The fairest and bravest of women in Avlee ride the pegasi into battle. :)

Astella & Estelle, ty, that will help.

Daniel wrote:

Oh man, if I could get Daniel on a pegasus divine bond mount.

The fairest and bravest of women in Avlee ride the pegasi into battle. :)

Daniel, a true believer in equality, is undeterred!

A Quick message to my PBP groups: I have an important deadline to meet for tomorrow and will/have been working the entire weekend to meet it. As such I will probably only post very short messages or not at all until tomorrow night, or the day after tomorrow once I’ve taken a bit of rest. Thanks in advance for your understanding. Please bot me if needed.

Been feeling under the weather for a bit, sorry for the slow posts.

Don't worry. Just make sure you take care of yourself.

My ISP has been down for a week, and will be for another 1-2 weeks, so posting will be a bit more difficult for me.

Web version of Arcomage

Just tried it. :) Tricky, but I won... beginner's luck. Might have to invest 25 gold.

You can adjust settings in the browser. Default difficulty is AI: Genius. Often translates to the AI getting all the right cards.

ISP still down, however I'll get a post in whilst visiting a friend.

I am kind of reminded of mr. Mercer just sitting back and hear his group discuss plans & schemes.....

Another attempt at envisioning this character

She shares that a monastic order, present since relatively recent years, has a different view upon the origin and significance of their god, from what she has heard.

A better phrasing would be, they have a different interpretation of his role of protector of dwarven kind. He was still a mortal, and by lineage way way way back has familial ties to a couple of present day houses.

Been an insane few days. Really want to post more, and will do so when I get the chance. Won't bore anyone with personal details, but it should all calm down in a day or two.

What a time for a nat 20, on explaining what happened to her delegation and asking for the Order's support. I'm now very glad that Brunhild has some resources put into diplomacy.