Volcano's Land - Beyond the City of Light

Game Master Miner Cotren

Excellent. Enjoy the family visit!

apologies - busier weekend than expected. update tomorrow.

I thought we were waiting on Zeph. You're good.

As above! No worries at all!

Are we? It was Pride here, so my apologies, it impacts almost everything.

We should be good, Zeph's kids are READY!

Thanks as always! I will say it again - this group is worth the wait. I think we all have busy lives in our own ways, and I appreciate the story we're putting together.

A point to ponder this week - As we are continuing to develop the NPCs around you, are there any you are particularly close to? (favorite student, or a cousin, etc) It's ok if the answer is no - you are a group thrown together somewhat by happenstance.

Not so far. He has students from classes, from his lab, and maybe a handful of junior colleagues that he considers more or less equals. I referenced that he has a closed scar from a previous marriage on his ring. I left that deliberately vague as to whether it was a widowing or a divorce, but he's clearly not worrying about legal family.

A point to ponder this week - As we are continuing to develop the NPCs around you, are there any you are particularly close to? (favorite student, or a cousin, etc) It's ok if the answer is no - you are a group thrown together somewhat by happenstance.

Zeph has several acolytes ... Zeph has ONE disciple.

Zeph actually calls Anan by the name 'Sky' when he isn't thinking, or he's distracted by his feelings for him. For Zeph, Anan is the only other Sylph he's ever known who is Breeze-Kissed, and the fact that he has the Whispering Wind trait is astounding for Zeph. He believes this young man will be the next Sky Druid when he accepts himself and his power. The other students look up to Anan, although Ciela is extremely frustrated that some things seem easier for Anan.

That said, Zeph always has high praise for Ciela as she is Weather Saavy like he is, and has his eye on Natann; Natann was banished from his home for being unable to Feather Fall ... it was Zeph who helped him realize he can speak to birds.

We are doing theater of the mind for this first part, unless it becomes necessary to have a map.

---Albert is ~20 ft away from inquisitor. Groups are running past, now that Ky La is entangled.

---Zeph and Edmund were both close by, so as I said in Gameplay you are within charging distance for an attack, if you wish to be

---The gates are still ~60 ft away, so in 2 rounds of careful movement your acolytes etc can be there. (or 1 round of faster movement)

Zephyr? Edmund? Y'all okay out there?

Sorry this week has been chaos for me I hope to post tonight!

Sounds good - thanks for the update!

Albert, have you been to graduate school/ academia of some kind? Your write-up on thesis selection and all that seems all too real to me.

Zeph, if you want to narrate Anan's contribution (maybe their first time transforming into an elemental state, just as a narrative moment?), feel free to do so over the weekend.

I will be able to get some posts out there when I get back from owrk later, and I have the next 2 days off :)

Sounds good!

Albert, have you been to graduate school/ academia of some kind? Your write-up on thesis selection and all that seems all too real to me.

I've been found out! I have spent...almost eight years in graduate education of one form or another, most recently trying to earn a PhD. I didn't go ABD, but I was nearly done with coursework when I left the program. I got a first-author paper and a couple pieces of fancy paper out of it, so it wasn't a total wash.

I spent about three years on an engineering PhD, when I realized I despised every aspect of grant-writing, proposals, and thesis editing (which made up at least 60% of my time). Quit and never looked back. Much happier to have my teaching certificate :)

My field was speech science. I was actually a professional grant writer for a few years before I went back to school, so I didn't hate it. For me it was being told that I wasn't making progress fast enough because I was spending too much time analyzing data instead of throwing it out for being too difficult to parse. (Among other things.) Toxic academia.

I may return to teaching at some point, but academia just burned me out. I do enjoy teaching ^_^

Sorry for the delays - last days of schoolyear for me, and it's a lot of packing and cleaning and paperwork before I close my door for the summer :) Planning on an update today.

We should be back to our normal posting schedule now :)

Huzzah! My wife is also a teacher, but our local schools let out in May. So much packing and cleaning and paperwork.

The big point to ponder now that you have escaped Light with body and mind intact ---

Where are you going? North to Forest? Flee to one of the other ifrit cities?

We can have an informal discussion here (rather than in Gameplay) where we flesh out your thoughts, then we can RP it in Gameplay (more or less)

What say you?

Albert is inclined to go to one of the ifrit cities, probably Hearth. If I'm reading the map correctly, it's the closest large city that doesn't cross the Charcoal Desert and I think there might even be a road there. Forge might come after, but Hearth is a good start.

His reasoning is that he isn't sure how much the other cities are aware of what happened in Light. While Forge might be more useful for gathering an army, Hearth seems like the center of culture and a good place for refugees. Whether we can rally a defense to retake Light from Moon or not, it seems like the next logical destination in our journey.

I'm all for one of the Ifrit cities as well! I was thinking Forge initially as that is where Edmund in particular has the most experience traveling to but I think that Hearth makes sense too.

I definitely don't think that our group would do well in the Forest so the cities are my choice.

Forests also tend to block the sky more than industry, pollution notwithstanding. A city of culture is also going to be more likely to maintain an open mind about faith & religion: Zeph is in favor of Hearth.

Sounds like Hearth is a winner then!

You've had your own troubles, and communication to the outside has been scarce in Light, so you are not sure what has recently transpired there. Let me know what knowledge gathering skills, spells, etc you would like to employ.

(this is stuff that happened before Moon truly ascended to power, so you are all aware of the basics of 4-5 months ago, in-game time)

***
The first thing that pops into my mind (and hopefully this will be fun to RP!) is that a priest of Silver Bringer is going to be VERY suspect coming into the city. The aspect of Silver-Bringer, and parts of the old Inquisition, were responsible for atacks on Hearth, including the desecration of the Great Temple, (crippling the power of the Cauldron Lady and The Warrior until it could be cleansed.) and the almost-murder of the Blessed (a cadre of warriors immune to the Dark, very popular in Hearth).

**

This is normally where I would love to have Ears of the City, though it is not on the alchemist spell list. It is, however, available to warpriests! So I'd recommend that. Clerics have some excellent divination spells. I'm happy to make some recommendations if you're pressed for time, Edmund.

(I also wish that Zephyr still had some spellcasting. Druids have some of my favorite divination spells in the game.)

Depending on how far we are to our next destination and whether Albert was able to set up any of his comm nodes, he'd love to send some messages out with his techy Whispering Wind spell.

Otherwise, Albert's skill set is more prone to gathering information via research than working a crowd. (Knowledges are arcana, dungeoneering, engineering, nature, and planes, like a good alchemist. None of that other faff. Geography? History? Local? Nobility? Religion?! Who needs 'em?) He'd be willing to trade goods and/or services for information. But someone else might have to negotiate on his behalf.

He also has a few tricks that he can try, like drinking tea made of Insight Leaves and using his patent-pending combination of heightened awareness and tears to wine.

---

Albert will absolutely be keen to disguise Edmund, but I'm not sure whether he'll agree (nor whether we have the skills to make it happen).

What I recall agreeing is that Zephyr didn't have the standard bredth of spellcasting, but we left in place access to Domain spells, one of which is Whispering Wind. I'd be interested in petitioning to have only divination spells in Zeph's standard spellcasting slots if that could be considered: it would be extremely prophet-like imo.

That is super interesting, and I like the idea of saying "yes" because you are really playing Zephyr like a prophet/mystic. Hmm...

1) Please give me a list of 1st, 2nd, etc level druid divination spells that Zephyr would reasonably have access to (speak with stone, for example, doesn't work with air god prophets)

2) Rather than worrying about spell slots progressions etc, I like the idea for now of using EITHER your 1st level domain spell OR your 1st level divination spell 1 /day (but not both). If its overly restricting, I'm open to revisiting, but for now I want it to be about giving you more choices, but not more spells/day.

If I could make a few recommendations, I'd pitch:

Add those to the Electricity Spells that I rustled up before and you have an interesting thematic list.

We are totally headed in a very very strong direction here, I can give this a little more time after I go out for a minute (one of my syaff is performing)

See, now Zeph could be almost like Samual Adams, Brewer/Patriot
Zephyr emir, Prophet/Mystic

I'm taking a moment to read everything that's already been posted, and give both Zephyr and Edmund more time to chime in about everything. I'm very happy to see the flurry of excitement - it lets me know we're headed in a fun direction!

Sorry for the delay, I have been swamped at work.

Ears of the City seems very thematic for Edmund so he definitely would have used that in preparation, though his low diplomacy likely means it would have been hard to get good information. Edmund wouldn't disguise his faith too much but also doesn't insist on wearing it on his sleeve, he'd cover up his holy symbols and such.

In addition other spells I'd have used before leaving

A series of Auguries on taking the group to different locations.

Clairvoyance on the areas around the city to scout things out.

Page Bound Epiphany and Lay of the Land to help create a map of the best path to Hearth

K. Geography: 1d20 + 1 + 9 + 5 ⇒ (13) + 1 + 9 + 5 = 28

Thats what I can think of immediately!

You can see Perception instead of Diplomacy to gather information with Ears of the City.

Let's see here comments so far:

Ears of the City will be good for local info when you arrive
Same with Whispering Wind - the 1 mile/level means it won't be able to get to Hearth until you travel closer.

We'll say with the insight leaves, the knowledge geography was a 30 (I know you're supposed to use them on a re roll, but this is simpler)

I will look up the details of augury, clairvoyance, etc, and see at what point in your journey you will be employing those.

**

It's a little over 2 weeks of travel from Light to Hearth. (on foot, assuming no one is actively guiding you or making travel easier)

Will you travel by road? If so, will you disguise yourselves or hide your professions in some manner?

Or will you travel straight toward Hearth? The wilderness consists of some ugly scrublands adjacent to the desert, and some sparse treelands in the first leg of your journey.

Let me know!

Albert doesn't see a need to disguise himself but will encourage Edmund to do as he described above. And as far as he knows, the road is safer, so a road caravan seems reasonable until demonstrated otherwise.

I've been doing DM stuff (reorganizing notes, taking notes on NPCs, etc) , and I think we've had adequate time to let our plans solidify. I'm looking forward to seeing how you like Hearth!

So, I will get us started again in Gameplay now that we have a plan, and we shall see where the road takes us.

I like the idea that a strong mid-level caster would be able to find good ways through travel, and even find your way to some friendly NPCs. You have a successful first two days of travel.

**

Feel free to RP some highlights of

-when you first escpae
-the first few hours of flight
-what you are doing to occupy yourself, or tend to your groups, as you travel
-who approaches the group of crafters and mercenaries? that is where we will "officially" start the narrative back up

Working on a post. I should be able to get to it tomorrow.

Working on a post. I should be able to get to it tomorrow.

Also working on a post ... because it occurred to me that as a flier (at this point natively, but also for 18 hours in Wild Shape potentially), Zeph could and probably SHOULD be the most well travelled.

Travelling as an Air Elemental, he could previously have made the journey between cities almost with no obstacles, including city gates or anything else like customs or checkpoints.

Just wondered if there is anything that Zephyr can roll, like Religion to have contacted other enclaves of worshippers or sylphs in either Hearth or Forge (or even visited his student's families or something)

I really like the idea of you having made a pilgrimage or two to some of the holy sites around Hearth and Forge. I think we can develop this as we travel closer. For right now I've got:

--Albert, homegrown in Light, probably never left the city (no Hearth)

--Edmund, mostly a Light hometowner as well, but in background he's done weapons / materials runs to Forge a few times. (no Hearth)

--So we'll develop Zeph's history with Hearth. I can already think of a few interesting elens you may have met.

Hey, this week till late Sunday I have huge commitments at work so I likely wont be able to get on to check and definitely won't be able to make a post. if things are waiting on me please bot!

Never left the city is perhaps too strong, but I suppose it depends on the nature of the world at large and the prevalence/safety of travel.

In our world, an Albert type would have certainly traveled to academic conferences, participated in an exchange program, internship, or sabbatical in another location, and possibly done some field work as part of his medical experience. If Caith is exclusively intramural rather than intermural, then there likely would not have been travel associated with his time in the sport.

But I'm perfectly fine with him having never visited Hearth specifically.

That's totally fair. So Albert is reasonably well-traveled, but never specifically made the trek to Hearth.

Edmund, could you give an update when you get a chance? Will you be able to start posting after Sunday, like you mentioned above?

Looking forward to seeing more of our story unfold! :)

Yes! currently catching up should have a post within an hour or so!

Albert, are you essentially always in your armor? There's a difference between a Tony Stark (who always has something ready, but also likes to wear slick designer suits about town) and a Lord Iron (who uses it to effectively take action in the world, and as far as that comic shows I think he is never without it)

This answer may answer depend on how paranoid Albert is feeling in a post-Moon world. It's really up to you --- I think you have advanced enough technology that you could keep yourself clean and fed and exercised without taking the physical suit off.