DM Voomer's Age of Ashes

Game Master Voomer

I would attribute it to morbid fascination.

Just checking in, saying hi, and hoping everyone is doing at least reasonably well.

Also that I am enjoying the commentary in game while we wait.

Heh, Lisi can't engage in the commentary cuz he is a lizard--but this is what he's up to:

Recon

Just as a heads up, my partner and I will be out of town from April 5-7. Historically, we haven't had internet access/cell phone signal where we're going (cabin in the woods with a full-sized hot tub!), so there's a possibility I'll be out of touch.

If we happen to have cell phone signal, I'll check once a day or so in the evening (my time, EST in the USA) and try to keep up. :) If not, I'll be silent. I'll post botting instructions before I go just in case we're in the midst of anything big by that time.

So, Cabin In The Woods meets Hot Tub Time Machine? Have fun!

Lisi has to do a melee!

So, Cabin In The Woods meets Hot Tub Time Machine? Have fun!

I completely forgot to reply to this, rofl...

I haven't had any scary experiences in the cabins yet - *knocks on wood* - even when I was on some psychedelics!

looking forward to just hanging out and being able to read some of my backlog.

I'm back from Aotearoa New Zealand! I love that country so much: so much beauty, so much friendliness and peacefulness, and -- despite the continued injustices and only partial reparations -- the Maori have a real presence and agency (in some domains at least and especially on the North Island where I was) that's very moving.

And thanks for all the awesome roleplaying while I was away. I'll try to get up the info soon from Lisi's recon, but I think we probably won't fully leap into the next phase until Catalina is back from the woods.

If I have signal, I'll let you guys know around Wednesday evening. Roll20 will be tough, but I can post from my phone. I do it a ton anyway.

Lisi has to do a melee!

Battle lizard!

Voomer, welcome back. Might I suggest giving the captives something to do in the meantime? They have been on hiatus for a while now.

Even if we don't know where we are. Would be nice to post something.

The cabins I'm staying in have wifi now. I'll be able to keep up. :)

I will be in Death Valley and the Eastern Sierras for 2 days! Stay slithery, my warm blooded friends!

I'm home from my trip. Once Lisi is back, y'all need to stay still for a sec so we can get some progress :P

I'm back...but I figured the hostages were up next? I done posted my Lisi-Lizard-Recon post! :D

Hopefully everything is good with Voomer. Haven't heard from them since their "I'm back" post.

Can I get a quick woof from everyone here?

boof

ssssss (do lizards actually hiss?)

oh right! Geckos!

GECKOS!

Meow?

Hey

Sorry folks! I had busyness after being away and then some teenager school drama. I will aim to get a couple of posts up tomorrow.

The Exciting Adventure of Lisi on the Floor

won't you pleeeease pleeeease help meeee :D

Caiten: it is a little hard to tell the different charau-ka apart, other than the fact that some wield tridents and look tougher and carry more authority (and, of course, in your experience those are much more dangerous).

Agreed. They look pretty much the same, and they all seem to howl while attacking. But only some of them lick the blood off of their weapons. Those are the more dangerous ones.

Happy Earth Day Weekend!

Obligatory Druid Post. ;)

Everything okay, DM? I have to admit I'm more than a little worried about this game's life given how infrequent the DM posts are.

Life has been a LOT recently, and I have had a ton of obligations to try to juggle, and also trying to continue to do a good job at work. I'm still here, and I'll try to do better. I am committed to continuing, even though the regularity has been hard for me since I returned from my trip. I'm very sorry about that.

Yasami, you move 15 feet per stride when sneaking and have no additional modifiers to sneaking that I should know about, right?

Sneak speed is halved (for now).

Stealth +13, nothing else, unless you want to add your own modifiers for foliage, etc.

Great post, Yasami. I'll respond later today.

Life has been a LOT recently, and I have had a ton of obligations to try to juggle, and also trying to continue to do a good job at work. I'm still here, and I'll try to do better. I am committed to continuing, even though the regularity has been hard for me since I returned from my trip. I'm very sorry about that.

Thanks for the update. I understand being busy. Prolonged radio silence gets alarming when folks have a tendency to disappear without any explanation on these forums.

If it becomes too difficult to keep up with, please keep us in the loop. There's no shame in not having the time.

This is my spell preparation from the previous day.

Voomer, do I still have those available?

It seems a little unclear, but I think probably not. The rules say, "If you’re a prepared spellcaster—such as a cleric, druid, or wizard—you must spend time each day preparing spells for that day. At the start of your daily preparations, you select a number of spells of different spell levels determined by your character level and class. Your spells remain prepared until you cast them or until you prepare spells again." The language "you must spend time each day preparing spells for that day" seems to be the obstacle here. Do you have any rules references or reasoning that they remain prepared if not expended the previous day?

Besides:

Your spells remain prepared until you cast them or until you prepare spells again."

Not really.

It is questionable and vague in the rules. That's why I ask.

Actually, the consensus of advisors I turn to in such situations is that unexpended spells REMAIN AVAILABLE until you actually go through the preparation process again, focusing on the "Your spells remain prepared until you cast them or until you prepare spells again" language. So you've got them. Can't do any gestures or movements or have any ingredients at the moment, but you may have ideas how to get around those problems.

Yeah, I can't cast pretty much anything while bound (no somatic components), gagged (no verbal components), and stripped of my equipment (no material components).

But I do have a trick up my sleeve that may be able to help.

Indeed! I'll be interested to hear what you come up with. For the moment, the charau-ka seem pretty staffed up, but I know Caiten is keeping watch for an opportunity.

It seems to me the best plan is to bottleneck them in the door to Hezle's hut.

Yasami woild go pick you guys up, take you to Hezle's, pour as many life elixirs into whoever we bring there and smack the living begeezus out of the attackers in the doorframe.

What are your thoughts?

Sounds good to me. We will want to be certain we have some kind of exit strategy in case they try to burn down the hut instead of engaging with us

By the way, Voomer - what is Hezle's hut made of? Could someone potentially jump through the wall?

If it's wood, I think I could shape it...

Yasami, you doubt that Hezle would want to be in the hut while you are fighting at the door. It is clear she would like to slip away during the fighting, and try to make her involvement at least somewhat unclear, although she does express a willingness to throw bombs from behind the mud pile to try to scare the spiders out, if that would help.

Again, what she said she could do would be to have Oren or Caiten brought to the hut, which would leave the other back in the bunkhouse. It would mean that the charau-ka butcher who brought the prisoner would be in the general vicinity outside the hut. When Hezle hears what you're thinking, she does say that she could, when you're ready, create a smoke bomb and escape out the front door and leave you inside with Oren or Caiten.

Just FYI, there is some risk involved trying to sneak Lisi and Catalina into the hut as well, just because even with "quiet allies" you need to use the lowest stealth modifier, right?

Even though you're obviously not all together, I'm fine with anyone throwing out ideas in the discussion thread for how Yasami/Lisi/Catalina proceed, if you all would like to do that. Just so everyone can feel involved. I would prefer, though, that whoever stays behind in the bunkhouse not spell out what they would do, just to keep that part a bit of a fun mystery...

Does that make sense?

And, oh yeah, the hut is made of hard wood. Someone could chop a hole in it, but it would take some effort.

I just have vague sketches of ideas for what to do if left unattended - nothing specific in mind yet.

As for team rescue, the only thing I have is a backup plan of causing a huge distraction and drawing out the Charau-ka from the bunk house so that Oren and I can try to escape on our own. Some sort of stealth/deception/intimidation skill challenge to draw enough attention - while also staying far enough away to not fully engage in combat with an overwhelming force.

I don't think any of us assumed Hezle wanted to fight with us in a substantial way so I wasn't even factoring her into the plans beyond the little DM described.

DM, when you mention "there's risk involved" are you making a hint that it is substantially more risk than any other action and you're trying to steer us away from that option? Without body language and tone of voice, picking up on hints is difficult and I'm too autistic to deal with it lol. Risk is inherent to this entire thing when half of our party ditched out in the middle of a crazy situation.

So, who are we thinking of nabbing between Caiten and Oren? I think agitating the spiders is a good idea and sneaking at least one of us up (Catalina has the higher modifier) would be a good idea so when combat breaks out Yasami/whoever we are nabbing don't die immediately while Lisi and Catalina waste time running up to the fight.

This planning phase has been going on for literal months, we gotta get something going lol.

Also - rereading some of Hezle's stuff - we could also consider negotiation with the charau-ka since they're not loyal to the baddie and unhappy with their situation. They run off and leave us alone or assist us in an assault? Hmmm.

I say we nuke the charau-ka from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Plan B, take Caiten to the trees, and from there, all four of us have ranged options - I have a bow, Catalina has a gun, and Lisi and Caiten have ranged spell options. Maybe even a charm (?). When and if they get to us. We can try to set up some sort of a spiked trap to complicate things for melee defenders, though that might take time.

I'm honestly not sure how to do this without them wiping the floor with us. Based on our last attempt, the butchers seem quite strong in melee. Better make use of the time we have and focus at least one down while they close the gap.

An optimal scenario would be to separate them and pick them off while others are unaware. But we would need to send some of them FAR, FAR away to not be alerted of us. Again.

We have two more powder kegs to use. Drop them in the treeline, lure some of them into that, then cause an explosion.

All I meant about "risk," Catalina, is that if you and Lisi snuck to the hut as well -- before Hezle frees one of the prisoners -- that would require two more stealth checks -- Yasami coming back for you two and then the three of you coming back. And if either of those checks failed then the plan would be foiled. You do have hero points, but I just wanted to make sure you all kept that in mind.

Catalina, Yasami's understanding is that the charau-ka are not likely to all fight to the death, but Yasami doesn't have the impression that direct negotiations are a risk worth taking given how impulsive and blood thirsty the charau-ka are.

Yasami, your understanding is that Hezle can send another butcher into the mine but cannot send any others away; that she would have either Caiten or Oren brought to the hut; that it would be a butcher bringing him; that the butcher would wait outside the hut during the "interrogation;" that you could then do whatever healing you wanted to do with Caiten or Oren and give any weapons/armor to them; that to get to the treeline you would need to get past the butcher; that Hezle has offered to make some kind of a small explosion that might aid an escape (and she would also cry out about escaped prisoners and run away from you all) -- but there will be a butcher right nearby; and that Hezle is willing to circle around and use bombs to cause the spiders to come out of the mudpile on the mine side -- that would take her a few rounds to run around and toss the bombs but such spiders would provide some extra chaos for the cultists.

Ok, let's just get this rolling. To simplify things:

(1) I'll just say that Hezle can bring both Oren and Caiten up to her hut. That would mean that two butchers would accompany the prisoners and wait outside the hut. Oren and Caiten will not have their equipment. The boggards will get suspicious, but they are lazy and probably will not follow all the way to the hut, although they may move a bit closer, as long as they can still find some wet mud to sit in.

(2) If she wants, Yasami can sneak Lisi and Catalina into the hut when Hezle sends the Northern guard down to the bunkhouse with her instructions to bring the prisoners.

(3) If you decide to fight the cultists from within the hut, Hezle will plan on running out yelling something about an escape. She will then head over behind the large mudpile and try to force the spiders out the front (mine side) with explosions to the rear.

Sound fine? Do you all want to do that, or do you want to modify that plan in any respects?

On the whole, Yasami is very pleased with Hezle's cooperation in helping to plan the escape.

That all sounds good to me. Barring any further questions, What do you need from us in the next few posts to get the ball really rolling?