GM Harrow’s Curse of the Crimson Throne - AE

Game Master GM Harrow

By the way, I heard from Abella's player. They're still game if we're continuing. They're a bit busy at the moment and said they'd post when they got the chance.

After a bit of procrastinating, I put the GM recruitment thread up this morning. Fingers crossed!

Thanks for doing that. Here's hoping that we get lucky.

Looks like kittenmancer is willing to take the helm. Here's their post in the thread Cinnabar/Shrike set up.

I don't see anything that will be a problem in their post, and it seems they have the staying power to see us though if we can work with them. I don't know if I'm going to be up to going through their stuff today/tonight, but I plan on taking a look at their games to see how they GM.

Thoughts?

Looks great to me! Keeping a PbP campaign going for three years like that War for the Crown game is no small feat. I'll be able to dig into everything more tonight or tomorrow.

Howdy all! I’ll take a look as well

Howdy! Glad to see you back. :)

I, for one, welcome our new Kitten overlords.

I haven't gotten very far into their game, but I have liked what I have seen.

All hail our Kitten Overlords!

I, for one, welcome our new Kitten overlords.

All hail our Kitten Overlords!

Traitors!

In all seriousness, are we cool with Kittenmancer?

(Sorry Chainmail, I should have brought this up when we were talking earlier tonight.)

I am, for sure. I posted something a bit more in-depth in the recruitment thread.

I read through a fair amount of the 3 campaigns they linked too. I'm happy with what I saw. Plus, the newspaper.

Hi everyone, this is Kittenmancer's GM alias.

I'm still catching up with a few things, but I'll make a post in Gameplay shortly to try and get things started again.

I also had some logistical aspects I wanted to discuss with you all:

Maps:

I have a Roll20 subscription, so we can continue to use that, or we can switch to Google Slides. I am fine with either, so let me know what you would prefer. I have maps of the castle already, and I think I have a good idea of where the party is right now, location-wise. If anyone who still has access to Pinvendor's Roll20 campaign can send me a screenshot of the current map, that would be very helpful.

To Discord or not to Discord:

A lot of the other games I'm in use Discord for off-topic chatter, questions and planning. It does make for a quicker and more responsive discussion medium, but I can also understand if people want to keep all the information in one place. If you wouldn't want to use Discord, we'll stick with the boards.

Posting frequency:

I will try to keep the once a weekday and once a weekend rate as far as my posts are concerned, but I may not always be able to stick to this - especially when it comes to more complex scenes. From reading back through Discussion, there was an agreement of a 24-48 hours period before someone would be botted, so let me know if you're still happy with that.

As far as I'm concerned, I value quality over quantity, so I don't need daily posts from everyone all the time. However, please do let me know if the pacing ever gets too fast or too slow for you. I would also like to know if sparse posting is due to not having anything to contribute, feeling disengaged, being busy, or something else - a quick note in Discussion or in a PM would be very welcome either way.

This is more of a heads-up, but I am in GMT+1, so there may be a considerable time difference between me and some of the players, which may affect when I post or respond.

I think this is it for now.

If there are pressing unresolved narrative or mechanical questions that would have bearing in the immediate future, let me know. I'll use the rest of this week to catch up with the Gameplay and Discussion threads fully, as well as the very helpful compendium of NPC and story notes that Audria's player has sent me.

That was mostly focused on Audria. I tried to include what I knew of other characters where they touched on Audria, but I wasn't privy to any conversations between pinvendor and the other players about their characters.

I'm fine with discord or no discord. Very helpful, I know. :P

I'm fine with either map solution.

As for posting, I think as long as we keep things moving we'll be okay with whatever pace you can manage.

As for where we are right now:

We're waiting to go through the magical screening process.

Pip has found that Dendren, an NPC that we ran into previously when he was with a group that was trying to break into a store, is trying to find out about the status of a cask of wine that is supposedly from Vencarlo Orsini. Based on an "Eye of the Raven" post, Dendren is tied to revolutionary elements in Korvosa and has ties to nobility, I believe. Pip ran him through when we last encountered him, Abella healed him at Audria's pleading, and Audria did try to convince him to turn down a different path, but didn't really make much head way. No idea what Pinvendor had in mind here.

Merula was talking to the daughter of the captain of the Sable Company Marines who is also a student of hers to avoid talking to a magistrate that is the mother of another student of hers.

Audria is walking towards the magistrate to try and calm things down and is currently carrying Pockets, Dal's familiar, to keep him from getting underfoot and getting more stressed out.

Abella, Dal, and Jessica, I think, were having a conversation that's been interrupted by the magistrate getting close to demanding to see the manager.

Re: Dendren. This seems to be an NPC and plot hook created by the previous GM and not part of the AP. I'll see if I can reconstitute the puzzle at least somewhat and keep him around in the long run, but for the moment he may remain an unsolved riddle.

This is a snip of our current map.

Zoomed out quite a bit to get the whole thing.

Perfect, thank you! It looks like it's from a Gamemastery map pack, but the layout loosely aligns with the Korovsa Castle room I had in mind.

Maps - I find Roll20's interface a little intimidating, but it definitely seems deeper and more suited to this task. Google Slides is simpler but I often have trouble making it big enough on my screen to move a token easily, especially on mobile. I'm fine with either option, slight preference for Roll20.

Discord - I use Discord, but have no opinion on using it for this purpose, having never done so before. I don't know yet if the benefits of having a quicker discussion medium outweigh the benefits of keeping everything in one place and having fewer notifications to check. So, no preference.

Posting Frequency - Understood, and 24-48 hour botting is fine with me. If I'm going to have reduced availability in a given time period I will always let you know. I'm in UTC-07:00 as long as Daylight Saving Time is in effect, UTC-08:00 otherwise.

Other - Dendren was also tied into the Red Mantis subplot because he seems to be a Red Mantis informant(?).

I'll be able to get a proper gameplay post up late tonight probably. Welcome, Kittenmancer, and thanks again for taking up the GM mantle!

Re: Dendren: Oh, yeah, I'd forgotten about that. We also had a survivor from a Red Mantis initiation that we ran into that was targeting Silver Sven, the guy we had been directed to talk to when looking for the last group of kids that scattered from the Fishery. Sven is another NPC I came up with on the spot and if he holds any more plot relevance is pretty much up to you at this point.

Anyway, Audria told Bartholomew about the Red Mantis hopeful and where we left him, so what becomes of him is pretty much up to you.

Howdy!

Sorry, busy weekend here as I mentioned. Now that that’s over, things should be stabilizing (assuming I don’t wake up to stuff blowing up at work)

I’ll work on answers to all your questions and a proper post, but first of all, it looks like I need to get added back to the game, and dotting and deleting isn’t cutting it. Maybe we need to get the GM changeover pushed through first?

I'll work on that right now, thanks for flagging it, Abella.

Thanks for adopting us!!

Maps: I'm fine with Roll20 or slides. I've used both.

To Discord or not to Discord: I get the appeal of Discord, it does allow faster communication but, I understand where Shrike is coming from about keeping everything consolidated.

Posting frequency: Works for me.

I'm in the one, true time zone: EST

Once again, thank you for taking us in!

Here is the LINK for the Roll20. I enabled character creation and import, I hope that helps.

I'll set up a map of the current floor of the castle soon. Feel free to add relevant locations for your PCs on the map of Korvosa.

@GM Harrow: I was not expecting your Roll20 avatar, but I love it!

I think we're going to get along just fine. :D

I don't know who has the brooch in their possession, with the clerk's interest now would be a good time to elaborate on that or outright show it to them so that your group can be fast-tracked to see the Queen.

To clarify, I am waiting for a post from someone along the lines of "oh yeah, this old thing, we found it and we'd like to return it to its owner".

I will come up with some way to broach the brooch if no one has posted on the subject by tomorrow, but Merula is deliberately not letting on that she knows much about the matter. The only two here who were officially involved in the Lamm escapade are Audria and Abella, although Pippip also knows about the brooch's existence and more importantly, was with us at the jeweler's where we learned about the reward. Meanwhile, Merula arrived and 'met' most of these people (besides Audria) for the first time just a few hours ago. As such, I'm not expecting she will even be invited to meet with the Queen unless the entire Sanctuary of Shelyn party is.

I'm pretty sure Abella has it, but her player's been busy with RL stuff for a bit.

I'll post in a bit. Sorry for being a little slow.

Realized I probably should update Audria's sheet with the cash she has. I went ahead and bought a couple of things that she had all along, but didn't have due to cash constraints, namely the scholar's outfit that is getting reflavored as her nice robes she wears around the Sanctuary and when out on church business or festivals and the cleric's vestments which she has packed as well.

Hope that's not too much of an issue. I don't think they change anything, really, but I try to make sure that if she has an outfit, she has it in her inventory.

Since this game isn’t showing on my campaign tab, i’m gonna need to get used to checking it manually until that is fixed. Apologies!

GM, whenever you get control of the game, could you mark Abella as active again?

@Audria - that sounds fine, thanks for updating the sheet.

@Abella & Adam - yup, submitted a ticket on Monday, still waiting for a resolution. Until that is solved, I can PM Abella when it's her turn, if that's acceptable?

@All - Lania/Merula raises a good point about not everyone present being technically involved with recovering the brooch. My instinct at the moment is to not split the party, but if Merula, Dal or Pippip would rather do something else in the castle we can arrange that.

I would prefer if we can avoid splitting the party if possible. Given we're just getting back to it.

Oops, I think we kinda did that by accident. Merula and Audria are already in the next room, and I figured we'd be directed there once we were done getting zotted (Zone of Truth'd.)

By the map, I think we're still close by enough that hearing this conversation with the security checkpoint should be very easy, if you want to get involved, Audria.

I also prefer to avoid splitting the party and definitely wasn't asking to do something else in the castle! Just pointing out that it would be weird for Merula to participate in accepting a reward for something she didn't officially do, so if she's in the room when it happens, she'll just stay at the back with the rest of the Shelyn party and observe. If she's not in the room for the return and reward, I have no trouble waiting until that scene has played out.

Okay, I don't think it'd be too much of a retcon.

She is finally being appreciated by someone other than her sister for the first time in her life...

In an alternate reality where Audria has telepathy to go with the rest of her magical girl powers...

"B-b-b-but I *hic* appreciate you, Abella." *sniff*

NAT 20! on the Diplomacy Check
The guards look at Audria as she smiles and have to shield their eyes lest the wholesome adorableness blinds them. There's no way someone this pure could be lying, right?

Sorry, I should have done more narration to indicate what I was going for with Abella’s outburst. I havent slept well the last couple days and was just trying to get something up to move on the scene.

Sorry, I should have done more narration to indicate what I was going for with Abella’s outburst. I havent slept well the last couple days and was just trying to get something up to move on the scene.

You're fine. I was mostly doing that to tease you. That's what friends do, don't they? :P

In all seriousness, you're fine. I just thought it was funny and my oddball sense of humor did the rest. You don't have any reason to apologize to me.

And now that I have hopefully assuaged your conscience. Do what I'm about to do and get some sleep! Fatigue sucks. Sleep kills fatigue. It's science!
...
I think.

Well, this finally forced me to come up with Eliana's surname, Lumina, means light in Romanian.

Do you speak Romanian? I spotted 'bulz' and 'gogosi' earlier in the thread as well. :)

I was born and raised in Romania.

Nope, monolingual and I barely speak English most days. :P

I figured that Romanian was a good stand in for Varisian. I just ran it through a translator. I was trying for moonbeam or moonlight, but that didn't work well for a surname, so Lumina it is. :)

As for the food, well, I thought it'd be a nice touch. I grew up in Alabama and we love food down here. Gogosi remind me of the donuts my nana would make from canned biscuits, and bulz kinda remind me of kolaches, but it'd probably be called stuffed cornbread around here. Both look good and I'll have to try making them at some point.

I hope you and your family are safe. I know it's been crazy in that part of the world since early last year.

I’m getting over my flu shot and booster today so am really exhausted and achey. I’ll try to post later but it might not be until tomorrow

Don't push yourself. I think I can speak for everyone when I say we'd rather you take care of yourself first and then worry about posting. Rest up and I hope you get well soon. :)

I've got another post I want to do. Tally's was pretty quick so I wanted to get it out. Needless to say, Audria's feeling more than a little embarrassed.

Well, Abella shouldn’t be causing any more problems for a bit now :D

That our characters know of!

I don't think I'm spoiling anything thanks to the Eye of the Raven posts for the Mute Hag, but just in case...

Since this game isn’t showing on my campaign tab, i’m gonna need to get used to checking it manually until that is fixed. Apologies!

Updated.

Just because I'm not the GM anymore doesn't mean I'm bitter. I'm a PM away if you need something mechanical, or anyone wants to know more about hanging bits in the story.