GM Harrow’s Curse of the Crimson Throne - AE

Game Master GM Harrow

There's a good chance Shane has read at least one of Kandru's books.
Now, I'm not sure if his 19 intelligence went 'solved it in the first half' or he was delighted by the twists is actually a fan ;)

Not sure if Audria would be the type that'd go for murder mysteries. Should would probably be more than happy to illustrate some scenes for Kandru, though.

Since Pava has also been established as an avid reader of penny dreadfuls and other lurid fiction, I feel I should ask: does Kandru publish under a pseudonym?

First post is up. I do apologize for the wall of text - I'm afraid I got a bit carried away. Rest assured most of my posts won't be quite this verbose.

I hope some will be though — I enjoyed it very much.

Lania's not a big reader, but mysteries and detective novels would be right up her street when she does read. (Along with noble intrigues and comedies of manners.) It's possible she has also read a Corian Colt story or two.

50-50? High yes: 1d100 ⇒ 55

Though, remembering the names of authors is less likely. That brain space could be taken up with dance routines.

Well, if other people liked it, I'd be happy to try and write longer posts - I know it won't be called for in every instance, but I had a lot of fun with that one, and I'd be glad to write more. I do know that longer posts can sometimes be difficult to respond to, though, so I'll probably try to keep it to things like this - personal things, campfire banter, et cetera, rather than during active adventuring time.

As for Kandru's writing, she has Profession (Writer) at +13 - though I'll gladly switch it to Artistry or some such if our GM feels it would be better suited - and I plan to continue investing in it, so she's mediocre at worst, I'd imagine, and will get better as she gets more practice. I don't imagine it's likely to come up from a mechanical standpoint, but it's a fun conversation starter/RP tool.

As for Pava's question, Kandru probably wouldn't be writing under a pseudonym, so avid pulp-mystery enthusiasts could conceivably have seen "Kandru Lostling" on the title page of her books. I had envisioned her writing style as more Raymond Chandler than Fyodor Dostoyevsky, with perhaps a bit of Jules Verne - "hardboiled private eye" stories with thorough research on the ancillary topics that come up in the novels, compounded by a touch of dryness, because if you've spent a week researching more than any normal person would ever want to know about alloying zinc, you're going to let someone know about it.

As a GM and player, I feel that last bit. :D

I cannot count the times I went down a research rabbit hole about some pretty obscure things, just to give more authenticity to a scene or character. For instance, I remember that at some point I wanted to give a Welsh accent to my undine druid, and now I know far more than I ever needed to about the different types of Welsh accents, as well as some pretty interesting tidbits of Wales history. :)

Nerds of a feather and all that...

Honestly, gaming leads you to research that is likely to put you on a watch list by intelligence agencies some days :)

It can also lead you to some wild ideas that cropped up in the 50's, 60's and later. I think Project Orion was one of the better known ones, but there's also Project Pluto, a nuclear-powered nuclear cruise missile (and no, that is not a redundancy) that would have used an open cycle nuclear thermal jet engine to fly around delivering warheads to targets before finding somewhere to turn into a crater. Then there's the Nuclear Salt Water Rocket by Dr. Zurbin. If a rocket basically riding a continuous explosion, then a NSWR is riding a continuous nuclear explosion.

Project Thor (also known as Rods from God), Lazy Dog (metal slugs dropped out of airplanes), the Alcubierre Drive (achieving "FTL travel" by displacing a stationary section of space) - really, some of the most amazing and/or deranged ideas yet proposed by humanity have been formed by giving a group of physicists a problem and telling them they only need to work out the theory.

I mean, I'm currently engaged in an attempt to heat isotopes extracted from seawater to temperatures over fifty times hotter than the core of the Sun, in an attempt to extract more energy out of the reaction than the hundreds of megawatts we use causing it to happen. A biophysicist friend of mine said that there's talk about trying to phase out x-rays in favor of a skin dye that makes parts of your body translucent. The only thing more unbelievable than a physicist's solution to a problem is the thought that it works in theory.

Oh, so you're actually a nuclear physicist. That's awesome!

We aren't dealing with a lot of other Shoanti at the moment, so it probably wouldn't come up, but just wanted to provide a link to the deal with Pava/Nips at Heels/Ayotah's names

Roll20 map has been updated!

"We do. Shrike learned that something happened a few days ago from an acquaintance. She asked us if we could help look for someone that was performing there and learn of his fate. Given what we know, I don't expect we'll find anything good there," Audria says, her expression grim and sorrowful. "We'll do what we can for anyone we find, though."

I don't mind assuming that Shrike would explain on the way to the Citadel that she was asked to look for a musician who had never returned home after taking a job to play at this party, though she technically had not mentioned any of that in-character yet. But I do want to clarify, in case there was any confusion, that she had no idea that the party was going on or that the musician was playing there three days ago, when it all started. She both learned about it and brought it to the others' attention on this same in-game day that we are beginning to investigate.

Crap. Sorry. I thought Shrike did know, and I had assumed that she explained what was going on when she gathered us all together.

That's on me for not doing a better job of keeping player knowledge separate from character knowledge.

No worries. Merula knew a week or more ago that her friends might take such a job if one were offered (though she advised against it), but not that any of it had actually happened until today. And it was a reasonable assumption that Shrike would do a little further explanation, if only so the others know she has an additional objective here besides hoping to track down the cult of Urgathoa.

Thanks for being understanding. Still frustrating when I do that, though.

Tsk - just noticed that I forgot to actually notate some shopping here in-thread - cool with Pava having tracked down a belt of dexterity +2, Harrow? Pava's also continuing to spend ~10% of their share on their organization - even if right now Old Korvosa is less accessible!

Yup, that's fine.

Wow, 16 posts behind. Sorry folks I'm the slow one right now it seems. Maybe a bit and I can't match that rate right now. Haven't been well.

I hope you feel better soon, Shane! Take care of yourself.

Pava gets an oil similar to Elric's ready in one hand, their cut-down klar at the ready in the other. "Probably they're not all vampires though? Sixteen would... That might properly be too many for us, yeah?"

Audria did tell us these auras are all faint, while the vampire spawns' auras were some of the strongest she had ever felt. So Shrike wouldn't be too worried they were all more vampires. And, indeed, they weren't.

Just playing Pava's non-existent Knowledge (arcana) :-p

There are 8 zombies described, but I only see 4 on the map (which I believe are all dead). Are there more that should be visible?

As I read it, there were eight corpses around the table, only four of which were moving and thus proper zombies - the rest are just dead nobles.

Apologies for my delay in posting - there's been a bit of a workplace emergency at my lab. Nothing dangerous, but one of our instruments failed spectacularly, so my group is on "autopsy" duty to make sure it doesn't happen to the other ones. I'll try to get something posted later tonight.

I think I'm going to wait for confirmation of whether or not Elric killed the zombies before Audria goes.

That said, holy cow! Elric is a cannon!

I can't see where the zombies are on the map relative to us, so I'll wait too. If they're placed in such a way that they're not immediately visible through the door, Shrike, Audria or someone else could be on cleanup duty.

Elric getting a full attack off is definitely a thing of beauty.

What I love about this build is that he can be both a full-auto squad assault weapon or a sniper rifle, depending on what the tactical situation calls for.

And in a couple of levels, when he can fly on Galewing, he’ll basically be a Spectre Gunship or an A10. Air support goes BRRRRRRRT :-)

What I love about this build is that he can be both a full-auto squad assault weapon or a sniper rifle, depending on what the tactical situation calls for.

And in a couple of levels, when he can fly on Galewing, he’ll basically be a Spectre Gunship or an A10. Air support goes BRRRRRRRT :-)

"We knew him when he was just some grunt with feathers caught in his hair!" ;)

Missed a golden opportunity by not naming Elric Burtus Octavian Free-Dominus, aka Burt O. Free-Dom. ;)

Apologies, folks, I was caught in the blackout that happened in Portugal and Spain yesterday. Today we have power and internet again, so I'll catch up on my games.

Damn! I missed that that was happening yesterday, an international blackout is wild

Boggles the brain a bit, glad folks are okay now

Hope things are alright. Any idea on what happened?

The cause is still unclear, and the Portuguese PM has requested an independent audit. Good thing our household at least was somewhat prepared, with some emergency supplies and solar-powered lamps, but at some point we lost mobile signal so we could get no updates or news. It was pretty sobering to see how fragile our modern lifestyle is.

Wow, that's alarming. Glad power and Internet have been restored, and I hope they figure out what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future quickly.

...I guess we should have rolled initiative before jumping straight into doing a full round of combat actions. Sorry, GM. If it turns out the zombies actually should have acted first, Shrike will basically still do the same thing, but possibly against different zombies.

lol I somehow missed that. Pava would actually make acrobatics checks to avoid AoOs if the deadheads aren't flatfooted... and would feint one to guarantee flat-footedness if somehow they all beat them in init.

It's all good. Also, their flat-footed and non-flatfooted AC is the same. :D

Folks visiting late today and much of tomorrow, I maybe slow in posting

I think I might have killed our one lead. :X

...Quick question before I act - what is the floor here made out of?

If the answer is "marble slabs" or some such, one of my domain spells is Stone Shape - if our assailant's still up after that attack, I could touch the stone she's standing on, reshape it into a cage so she stops shooting at us.

Pava did some non-lethal first, so my money's on either unconscious, or very close. Nice hit, Audria! That's definitely the most single-attack damage we've seen this campaign.

Hopefully it confirms. It would be a nice redemption after the last time she tried to smite evil and missed every single attack.

Guess that just goes to show you really shouldn't upset the nice ones.

That should teach her to laugh at Shelyn.

@Kandru: the lower floor is marble, the upper floor is wood.

Also, this weekend I want to update my HeroLab profiles for your all your PCs, so if you could please make sure your forum profile is updated with your latest crunch and equipment. :)

GM, if you wouldn't mind sending me your email via PM, I can just email my profile to you.

GM, if you wouldn't mind sending me your email via PM, I can just email my profile to you.

Same, or drop it via Discord

I don't have a HeroLab profile, but the information in Shrike's profile should be up to date. It includes e.g. the cloak of resistance +2 in her save values.

I'm really hoping that Audria and Kandru will get a chance to just chat at some point, I think the two of them are going to get along swimmingly, and would probably make for an effective tag team in the diplomacy department.

Sorry, folks, no post from me today, stuff at work is on fire (not literally, but I'm glad that I work remotely so murder is less of a temptation).

Remote Work saves lives!

And gas.

*gives his 180 mile/290 km daily commute some side eye*