I'd assumed Børak had met Ramada and Visayn, but not remembered their name. Anyway, I probably should have done a discussion here verifying that.
That was my impression as well. I had intended for a similar "general acquaintanceship" between my character and Børak, but I had not realized how distinctive Børak's scar was - nevertheless, I'm fine playing him as an absent-minded scholar instead.
That was my impression as well. Nothing was stated beforehand but I think it was a general assumption.
Quick question - was there any response on the questions from Magdali and myself? Magdali asked whether there were any inns in town, while I asked about an apothecary. Also, I used deathwatch and a Heal result of 26 on Drake - is he just old, or does he have some illness besides?
Kendra would tell you there are several inns in town. Though the only one she would recommend is the Silver Swan.
There is no major apothecary. In the temples they have their healers. There are a few witches that have a healthy supply. There is a trio of alchemists who run their own shop, The Brewers Trio.
Deathwatch reveals that he is healthy.
Heal DC 25 does reveal he is missing something. Almost like an atrophying spell but nothing that you can fix or even make sense of. No illness, sickness, or disease.
Ravengro is a superstitious lot anyone that would pass as a proper doctor is a butcher. Yes there are healers but as said before the best ones are in the temples.
Are there any skill checks to be tried on three other books?
Nothing within the module, but I am sure you could make checks on them...
On Verified Madness: This jet-black book is a treatise on aberrations and other
entities found on Golarion that possess remote ties to the Dark Tapestry, the name given to the
dark places between the stars in the night sky.
(Planes or Religion or Dungeoneering)
• Serving Your Hunger: This text is a copy of one of several unholy books sacred to the goddess Urgathoa. Lorrimor’s notations liberally sprinkle the margins.
(religion)
• The Umbral Leaves: This lexicon is a translation into Common of the unholy book of Zon-Kuthon.
(religion)
Thanks for the answers, GM Wolf - I had realized that my various questions were buried in large blocks of text and wanted to ensure I wasn't unnecessarily confusing.
At the moment, I'm seeing only two evident plot hooks tied into character backstories: Børak's mother was a Jezeldan cleric from the Shudderwood, while Nikolay's mother, Marica Voltario, was originally from Illmarsh, where he may still have family. Does anybody else have anything in mind, or are those the only two?
hmmm, I really only considered Børak's backstory just backstory, not really looking for it to be a plot hook. Just really stoked to get a shot at carrion crown again.
GM Wolf, sorry about the late post, Saturday's and Sunday's will be my slowest days, or at least the days with the fewest or shortest posts.
Thanks for the catch and questions Doctor!
I understand Borak, the weekends are hard for most as we are very busy during that time. Especially in the summer! I will try to keep things going, though weekends will likely slow down for me as well in the near future. Most of my games expect me to make posts from Sunday to Thursday. As Friday is typically my IRL D&D game, sometimes Saturday. Sunday is mostly family time let alone church.
If you mean actually making me angry, not in the least. I know the books need to get read, etc. What I'm trying to do is build a situation where we have more to talk about within the party than just results of knowledge rolls and next steps.
Friction generates drama. I'm having Magdali take the "difficult" position that makes sense given who she is. If everyone in a party agrees about everything all the time, there really isn't much of interest for characters to talk about pretty soon.
So keep doing what you're doing and bicker with Magdali if you want to. If you don't you can just ignore her. I fully expect to lose the debate, because she can't win it if the game is to stay on track.
Maybe one of Doctor Ramada's flaws is that he feels folks get spontaneously simultaneously angry with him for no reasons....
"Got to say, Doctor, your talent for alienating folks is near miraculous."
...
First of all great firefly reference. Second, don't feel obligated to explain your characters position OoC, I think if we had questions we'd ask in character, makes for more RP.
Also, I could have done a better job with describing how Børak said what he said, it was more sympathetic towards Visayn, not derogatory towards the doctor.
Keep up the good RP and discussion. Gotta love firefly let alone the references!
So are we ready to 'sleep', has everyone done what research checks they know or want to research, where are you all sleeping, will you be setting up a rotation to keep a look out?
If I read the books info at the home correctly, none of them help with info about the prisoners right?
I've done the research check my character is best suited for, but I'm not sure if everyone else is fine with the basic Knowledge check or whether they want to do half-length research periods before the end of the day.
If everyone else has found out everything they need for the day, I wouldn't mind having an IC discussion of what we found out (so our characters can know where to focus their efforts the following day) but would be fine with glossing it if the rest of the party wishes to do so (or swapping the order and having the aforementioned research summary at breakfast instead).
Nikolay will take Kendra up on her gracious offer, probably picking a room on the second floor. Rather than turning in immediately, he does have a letter (requesting an extended leave of absence and informing them about the elven ruin) to write to his colleagues and a concoction (comprehend languages extract for the Palatine Eye manual) to start before he sleeps. He would not ordinarily establish a watch on his own initiative, but if convinced of its necessity by Børak or one of the more worldly members of the adventuring party, he would volunteer for whatever shift is needed - he has darkvision, but so does every other character in the party.
As for your question, Børak, it seems to me that the Lorrimor residence can be used to research any of the three topics, though it only provides a bonus to the Whispering Way research - rather, characters cannot make Knowledge checks about the Five Prisoners untrained at any of the sites, thus if your character was trained in all Knowledge skills he could research the Whispering Way at the house with a +2 bonus or either of the other two topics with a +0 bonus, while if he was untrained he could only research Harrowstone or the Whispering Way with a +0 bonus.
Sorry GM Wolf I've not done a lot of 'knowledge checks' with the aid of a library.
So if Børak studies the books at the professor's house for eight hours he can make another knowledge local check? would that be at his normal bonus of + 7
Technically yes Borak, which subject are you trying to remember about or research? Yes that's right you guys get two checks this first night, assuming you do research as well tonight!
I felt like he did well on his knowledge roll on the prison itself, but he didn't do well on the prisoners. So if He can do only one every eight hours he would do the prisoners. I'll go roll that here in a bit.
[Dice=Knowledge (local)]1d20+10[Dice=Knowledge (local)]1d20+10
Did I find anything about either Five prisoners or Harrowstone?
On second thought, I think I will adjust my extract loadout for greater social utility - it's too late to alter my post, but I will submit my revised extract list here.
Revised Spells Prepared: Extracts Level 1 (5) – Crafter's Fortune, Shield, Identify, Comprehend Languages (x2); Extracts Level 2 (2) – Cure Moderate Wounds (x2)
As a side note, you can really only learn about the Whispering Way at the Lorrimir's library. The other subjects will need to be foud elsewhere.
Cool, I guess I should have been more specific when I asked about doing research. Børak only has Knowledge in dungeoneering, geography, and local, so just trying to get the biggest bang for the buck.
Magdali Kiritescu did your post happen in response to Doctor Ramada's spoiler, or did that happen in the room where everyone was? if where everyone, was did it happen before or after Børak left?
It was specifically the conversation with Dr. Ramada.
ahhh glad I didn't post :)
I thought if it was time for show and tell, Børak could shapeshift :)
Nah, that's why I mentioned closing the door and so forth.
For the most part, Ramada tries to keep the metaphorical horns under the metaphorical hat (not that he has either) - that is, he prefers to keep the fact that he is a tiefling a secret. He spoke to Magdali about it because he knew that she was likely to find out his secret at some point or another and because of his (ultimately unfounded) fear that she might not react well to the news.
My sincerest apologies if I'm metagaming with the knowledge on the undead, but I figured that given the anti-undead focus of the Pharasmin faith and my character's experiments with using electricity to stimulate neurons, he would have had at least one talk with his local priest, likely focusing on the "vestiges of twisted souls" and "perversion of the natural order" parts first and foremost.
As for Magdali's analysis that he's a bit paranoid, that's just what the invisible shadow assassins want you to think!
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Honestly, I don't play a lot of characters that use knowledge religion. So, I didn't know if you made that up, or if it was the actual 'method.' I was just asking the GM if Børak had any information to compare it to.
But if you did metagame: for shame! Bad kitty! Don't make me get the squirt gun out.
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Honestly I am not sure. If you need me to make a ruling I can. Seeing that you do not have k: religion then you likely would have very little information to compare it to.
This situation seems very bad - unless we can kill seven of the stirges in the next round, my character is very likely dead.
GM Wolf, did the 7 points of splash damage from the bomb seem to have any effect? If so, I will likely throw another bomb at an adjacent grid intersection and try to weather the splash damage.
Yes sorry I knew I needed to add more detail to the fight. The splash damage did hurt over half of the swarm. Another bomb at an adjacent grid intersection will likely kill most of them.
I just wanted to check in with the rest of the party before finalizing my gameplay post. I was hoping to roleplay the effects of my character's injuries, but given his blood loss, the most likely condition is hypovolemic shock, symptoms of which include confusion, aggressiveness, and drowsiness (that is, his actions will be illogical and mildly confrontational). As such, I just wanted to check in with the rest of the group to see if this is okay, or if I should RP a more subdued effect. While I understand that one of the primary elements of roleplaying is making suboptimal choices because they make sense for a character, I also want to ensure I don't go too far and antagonize the other characters or players.
Are we all unintentionally meeting at the Pharasmin temple? It seems like all the characters are headed in that direction.
I believe that's going to happen, yeah.
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Are we waiting on someone, or are we ready to move forward? Just checking.
I think we should be clear to just meet at the church?
@GM Wolf, you still here? You haven't moved the game forward since over a week ago.
Sorry folks as I have been MIA. Thankfully nothing serious, just a lot of time with family and vacations and such. From the 1st to the 9th I likely will not be posting much as we are going to the beach and won't have wifi at the beachhouse. Service is also spotty but I will see what I can do.
No worries - I just wanted to check and make sure you were okay. In two of my other campaigns, the GMs have been struggling with COVID-19, so I just wanted to make sure you were feeling well.
Well, yes. A bit of back pain and I locked up my knee yesterday. The knee is almost recovered. Now I just need to chisel out time for my online games! :)
Ramada's experiments may seem like an incredibly bad idea, but even through the early 20th century, it was common for scientists to test their discoveries on themselves - the Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla, the archetypical "mad scientist" in many ways, famously gave himself 250,000-volt electric shocks in public to prove his theories. Of course, Tesla was a few screws short of a hardware store (he spent his last years attempting to communicate with pigeons and obsessing over multiples of three), but the practice was still widely accepted.
Besides which, in a fantasy world with high levels of magic, science is naturally going to be somewhat different - just as armor is better able to stand up to early gunfire, science would naturally be streamlined by both the direct application of magic and the looser physical laws that allow it in the first place.
However, given the existence of clerics and the like, safety standards are likely to be even further behind their already abysmal state in the Renaissance.
I believe you had some business in the temple? No rush just trying to keep us going...
Very sorry for the long silence. Ends / beginnings of months can get very hectic at work. Also this last weekend was the most perfect weather we'll probably see here all summer, so I split town for the beach.
No worries! Nice, beach time!
So what were your plans, actions, and ploys?
So what were your plans, actions, and ploys?
After returning from temple I had promised to help Dr. Ramada with his plan to distribute those posters.
Magdali and Borak, I need your checks for research.
Visayn and Ramada, where are you putting the posters? Once you have finished what do you do? What was on the posters again?
I just rolled Perception to search for appropriate places to put those posters. After we are done, I'd wait for Magdali and Borak complete their research, and then prepare for ambushing the cultists.
I just rolled Perception to search for appropriate places to put those posters. After we are done, I'd wait for Magdali and Borak complete their research, and then prepare for ambushing the cultists.
You have posters printed? I may have missed the conversation about the cultists? Is that a definite thing or a hypothesis?
GM wolf, What is the modifier for the aid in research?
I'll get a post up later today.
GM Wolf and Børak, the posters were the ones Ramada made earlier in the day - they contained the skull symbol of the Whispering Way, a time after dark, and directions to a spot in the Restlands. Ramada figures that there has to be at least one Whispering Way agent in town, so he hopes to draw out said agent (or agents) into an ambush in the Restlands - he is betting that the inclusion of the villainous organization's secret symbol on a poster should be enough to draw them into a rendezvous/trap.