Lantern's Hillcross Roundup (Inactive)

Game Master breithauptclan

A group of Pathfinders is going through the land of the Mammoth Lords and have recently arrived in Hillcross.

To the far north lies the Realm of the Mammoth Lords and the Tusk Mountains. Much of the land is a harsh and often frozen tundra where Kellid tribes roam. Hillcross, however, while still often frozen, is a permanent settlement made mostly of tents. Here the Kellid tribes meet together and trade with each other and with those of other lands.

You find yourselves in Hillcross on this damp and comparatively warm day. The tent city is bustling despite the rain the night before. You hear livestock of various types, and somewhere nearby a woodpecker is busy tapping. The smell of damp earth fills the air.

Introduce yourselves to each other. There are also curious Hillcross residents nearby to talk to if you desire.

"Ahh! The glorious smell of fresh air! And horse plop." Harsk remarks dryly as he steps around a fresh mound.

"Benji! Benji dear, that's really not something you shou-NO DON'T EAT IT!" A tiny woman with butterfly wings struggles to keep the corgi she is riding from sticking his face in the pile of manure. The dog's face is unrepentant - or perhaps he is just incapable of forming the thoughts necessary for sinning - as the pair catch up with their dwarven colleague. "I swear, sometimes it's like he does these things to me on purpose. Do you think they have rose water here? I need something to get the smell off me. And him." Gwendellyn leans forward and scratches behind Benji's ears to show him that she's not really upset with him.

"Nothin' a good roll in the dirt won't help." Harsk chuckles. Normally the phrase is 'won't hurt', but depending on how much Gwendellyn likes the smell of dirt, the different wording could work either way.

Ulfhild scans the people in the city. But not only the people, also the tents and animals. And as a farmer, she's interested in the fruits and vegetables the people of Hillcross are offering at their market. When you watch her, you catch her buying some of the local products: cheese, bread and also some veggies.

"Oh, good morning." The merchant Ulfhild is buying groceries from greets her. "Nice to see new faces here."

"Nothin' a good roll in the dirt won't help."

"Don’t you dare give him ideas!" Gwendellyn covers Benji’s ears and glares up at Harsk. "Especially not while I’m still riding him. Do you want him to crush me!?"

"Good morning, sir!" Ulfhild answers to the merchang with a smile. "I arrived yesterday evening, it's a nice place to stay, I have to admit. May I ask what kind of vegetables are produced throughout the year, here in Hillcross?"

"Throughout the year? Tundra grass. But I think only the reindeer eat that. There are some people who grow some ground root vegetables like potatoes. Most of my stuff is brought up from the south though. I mostly trade it for furs and cattle and other such things. Much more common around here to be what the rest of the world would call a rancher than a farmer."

"Now, if you are interested in more interesting local stuff, there is a friend of mine just down the road that makes scrimshaw out of some of the dinosaur bones that he collects. Boy howdy, that sounds like a dangerous job. Going out into dinosaur lands to scavenge bones."

Harsk approaches Ulfhild and the merchant just in time to hear the tail end of the conversation. "Now, on the surface that doesn't sound dangerous, but I'm guessin' there's more to it than strolling over the tundra collecting stuff. I've only heard of dinosaurs, never seen one. How big are they?"

"I've only heard of dinosaurs, never seen one. How big are they?"

"Well, I've only heard rumors myself. But I've been coming here to trade for years now. So I've heard the rumors from a lot of people now." The merchant thinks for a moment. "Though come to think of it, I do sometimes see a few people bringing herds - or maybe flocks would be a better word - of little things that look like some sort of turkey."

"Anyway, the rumor is that many of the animals in dinosaur territory are fairly normal size. They just look quite a bit different than what we are used to. But some of them... well, if the rumors are to be believed, some of them are larger than houses."

Gwendellyn graciously refrains from commenting on how nearly everything in human lands was bigger than a proper house (which should be built in the stump of a tree, ideally oak, but birch or walnut could do in a pinch). Instead, she reaches forward and scratches Benji’s chin.

Hearing talk of dinosaurs, Iput moves over to address the group. The dinosaurs in my home jungles are big enough that you will never forget it when you meet one. Unless you get them worked up about something, they tend to take as much notice of you as you do of those insects favoring the deposits on the ground. However, ground cover and foliage does seem to be a little lacking here.

"I'll take your word for it."

'ting-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ti-ting'

The sound of the woodpecker you have been hearing since you arrived suddenly changes tone dramatically. It now has the very distinct ring of metal to it and sounds more like someone rapid-fire hitting a nail with a soft hammer.

The merchant also looks puzzled by this. "Now what is that bird up to this time?"

Looking around and guided by the sound, you fairly quickly spot the bird a few dozen feet away clinging to a message post with one foot, holding a piece of parchment with the other, and trying to get the parchment nailed to the post.

Certainly something noteworthy to check out.

"Oh, now this I gotta see." Harks beelines for the bird. He's quite interested in what a bird needs with parchment. "Hello. Need some help?"

Nature +5, if he needs to Handle Animal. How big is this bird? Like, RL woodpecker-sized?

No checks needed... yet. And it is just described as a woodpecker.

The small bird flutters to the top of the post and watches intently as Harks reads the note that it left.

Urgent assistance requested! Young stegosauruses loose!
Help me return them to the wild! Make haste to the
outskirts of town, due west, then south between the two
large boulders. Payment of gold provided in exchange for a
successful roundup.
—Xila of the Green Faith

It appears to have been hastily scrawled on the parchment. And the parchment shows signs of rough handling - probably from being brought and posted by a bird.

After reading the note, the woodpecker flies a ways away to the West, then circles back. Apparently seeing if you are going to follow or not.

"Ha! Sounds like those young 'uns are returning themselves to the wild. This I gotta see!" Harsk gestures to the others hanging around, inviting them to join him, and trots west after the woodpecker.

"Babies? Poor sweet innocent baby dinosaurs? They must be worried sick without their mama! Of course we'll help them!" Gwendellyn urges Benji after Harsk, his short legs keeping pace easily despite the height difference.

You make your way out of town and follow the woodpecker to a large clearing in a wooded valley west of town. There you see a herd of about 20 very young Stegosauruses wandering loose from what remains of a pen intended to keep them corralled, and a dirty and exhausted Kellid woman in a patterned cloak trying to get them all contained again.

The woodpecker flies over and lands on the woman's shoulder. She looks around and sees the group of you coming. "Good job, Vik," she says to the bird. Then she calls out to you and waves you over. "I'm hoping you are here answering my request for help. If so, ... or if not, for that matter, I could really use some help getting these young ones back into their pen. Don't hurt them, though. And see if you can find out how they broke free. You can ask me any other questions while we work."

Slides updated with picture of Xila and a stegosaurus.

Skill Challenge
Played in 3 rounds (these aren't 6-second combat rounds though - more like 5 minutes each round). You each get 1 activity each round.

Objective: Get the stegosauruses back into their pen and keep them there.

Example skill actions and descriptions:
* Nature: Calm some dinosaurs and get them to follow you into the pen.
* Performance: do something interesting that causes some dinosaurs to follow you out of curiosity.
* Athletics: push or pull individual dinosaurs into the pen.
* Crafting: rig up guide rails to help corrall the dinosaurs into the pen.
But you can be creative and use any skill that you can narratively justify using.

Special: You can forego your activity to herd dinosaurs to instead investigate the area (secret Perception check). You can attempt to do both herding and investigating, but each check takes a -3 penalty due to your divided attention.

"Ha! Lookit the little critters. Never seen anything like 'em. Grazers, huh?" Harsk notes their comparatively tiny heads and small mouths, traits atypical of predators. (Never mind the fact that a bunch of them are actually grazing.) "Welp. Let's see how stubborn they are. Hey! One of you guys see if there's a hole in the fence or somethin'!" He suggests as he saunters over to one of the stegosauruses (stegosauri?) and tries to push it toward the pen. "Heave-ho! There you go!"

Round 1
Athletics: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (17) + 6 = 23

Round 2
Athletics: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (16) + 6 = 22

Round 3
Athletics: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (14) + 6 = 20

Quick note. Best to only do one round at a time - similar to combat. Circumstances, and sometimes the details of the challenge, can change from round to round.

For now, I'll count that first roll as one success. You can choose later whether to keep those actions and results for the remaining rounds or do something else instead.

"Those are most definitely dinosaurs, and so far from the jungle..." Iput slowly moves closer to the "little" animals using a soothing and soft tone while smiling at the efforts of Soosan. Come along little ones... Wouldn't you rather be safely home in your pen among your friends? What has gotten you so anxious? Wouldn't being closer to your friends provide more safety?

Nature: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (3) + 5 = 8

Gwendellyn directs her larger colleagues on the proper way to fix the fence from her seat on Benji's back. "Nhorri love, you've left a hole there. Let's try crossing the ropes across it. Iput, darling, you've got to watch your claws or you'll cut right through this fencing. Xila dear, you wouldn't happen to have more of these stakes, would you?"

Crafting: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (20) + 7 = 27

Athletics: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (3) + 7 = 10

Ulfhild tries push the young dinosaur into the pen, but obviously she's not strong enough to move the animal from it's place.

Harsk shoves a couple of dinosaurs into the pen. They grumble a bit, but don't fight too much.

Iput appeals to their sense of family. But while the dinosaurs do have some herd instincts, they don't actually understand the language. And they feel that they can be together just fine outside the pen as well as inside.

Gwendellyn lashes up the gaping holes in the pen's fencing.

Ulfhild follows Harsk's example and tries shoving some dinosaurs into the pen. The muddy ground gets the better of her though.

"Xila dear, you wouldn't happen to have more of these stakes, would you?"

Xila nods and goes to gather more stakes. "Also, while they may not very intelligent in general, these little ones are very smart at being dinosaurs. They learn your tactics quickly."

Skill Challenge: Round 2
Objective: Get the stegosauruses back into their pen and keep them there.

You can be creative and use any skill that you can narratively justify.

Special: You can forego your activity to herd dinosaurs to instead investigate the area (secret Perception check). You can attempt to do both herding and investigating, but each check takes a -3 penalty due to your divided attention.

Note: As Xila mentioned, using the same tactics on the stegosauruses has reduced effect. Using the same skill as you used last round runs into a -3 penalty to the check.

Points Collected: 3

"They learn our tactics, huh? Now this I gotta see!" Harsk keeps pushing baby dinos, watching closely to see how well they've learned.

Round 2

Athletics: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (16) + 6 = 22

Ulfhild watches Soosan pushing more dinsaurs back into the pen and tries to copy his tactics hoping the dinosaurs do not learn that fast.

Athletics: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (5) + 7 = 12

"I bet they’re hungry. Are you hungry? Here sweet'ums, doesn’t this look tasty?" Gwendellyn holds a tempting raspberry in both hands while Benji carries her towards the pen.

Nature: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (16) + 5 = 21

"It appears that a more physical effort is called for here unfortunately." Iput moves over to attempt to herd and push a stegosaurus into the area of the pen.

Athletics: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (13) + 5 = 18

Harsk and Ulfhild team up to push some more of the dinosaurs into the pen. Ulfhild struggles with the mud, but even with the dinosaurs getting belligerent about being pushed around they aren't much match for the obstinate shoving that the Dwarf Ranger applies.

Iput gives up on trying to talk the dinosaurs into going into the pen and takes inspiration from Harsk and Ulfhild. Surprised at the change in tactics, the stegosauruses don't put up much resistance.

With the fencing repaired as best as she can get it with the materials at hand, Gwendellyn turns to luring the dinosaurs into the pen with food.

Xila returns with some more fence stakes. "Oh, good. Looks like you are making pretty good progress. Has anyone found out what caused the fencing to fail? I'm hoping it wasn't just my own failure at building - I can usually build pretty good pens. But I have been to busy to check into it."

Skill Challenge: Round 3
Objective: Get the stegosauruses back into their pen and keep them there.

You can be creative and use any skill that you can narratively justify.

Special: You can forego your activity to herd dinosaurs to instead investigate the area (secret Perception check). You can attempt to do both herding and investigating, but each check takes a -3 penalty due to your divided attention.

Note: Using the same tactics on the stegosauruses has reduced effect. Using the same skill as you used last round runs into a -3 penalty to the check. With the wording, I am interpreting that to mean that your Round 1 actions can be used in Round 3 again without penalty.

Points Collected: 6

Pity I goofed and already rolled all my checks, otherwise I'd investigate the pen. Who's up for it?

"Well, these critters may be smart-ish, but shovin' 'em still works." Harsk observes/brags as he continues herding by brute force. Will he eat his words this time?

Round 3

Athletics: 1d20 + 6 ⇒ (14) + 6 = 20

You can choose later whether to keep those actions and results for the remaining rounds or do something else instead.

Not too late - even now.

Ulfhild gives up on shoving dinosaurs and tries to inspect the area. Maybe she finds out what caused the fence to break.

secret perception +6

Ulfhild searches through the fencing and surrounding area, but doesn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

Not really being motivated to continue pushing stegosaurs due to their increasing resistance, Iput will also begin to investigate the area around the corral for any evidence of tampering and/or tracks from any creatures coming or going.

secret Perception +7

Iput checks more of the fencing, but doesn't find any clues either.

"Benji, stop licking that poor baby's face." Gwendellyn channels her mount's boundless energy into sniffing at the underbrush nearby while Harsk finishes herding up the stragglers.

Don't know if this would be allowed, but if possible Gwendellyn and Benji would both search with a +5 Perception modifier each. Benji also has the Scent familiar ability, which may or may not help us here.

Harsk shoves a last couple of stegosauruses into the pen and Xila gets one last one to join the herd inside the enclosure. Ulfhild and Iput carry over a few more fence rails and Gwendellyn gets them lashed into place.

With the dinosaurs contained, Xila stands there counting them repeatedly. "... seventeen, eighteen, ninteen, twenty, twenty-one." ... *huff* "OK. One, two, three, four... ... ninteen, twenty, twenty-one."

Finally she stops counting and turns to the rest of you. "It looks like there is one missing. Stay here, I need to figure out which direction the little one went." Xila starts searching around the perimeter of the clearing looking for signs and tracks.

Pausing here for any interaction or RP that you want to do. No checks needed, but feel free to assist in searching the area and the fencing now that there is plenty of time. Next plot hook tomorrow.

Iput walks over to Soosan to express her thoughts.

You seem much more familiar with this type of terrain than me. Please take the lead if we wind up set off to track the lost beast. It would be a pleasure to watch your methods. Should we see if we can pick up any identifiable tracks or damaged foliage now that things are a little calmer?

Harsk grunts and nods. "Sure, I'll lead the tracking. Kinda what I do for a living. For now, I wanna see how they broke outta the pen, though. They don't look tough enough to push their way out, unless there was a weakness somewhere. Then we can look for tracks."

Harsk notes some marks in a couple of the fence planks that look like they were made by a heavy blade. It seems that unless one of the baby stegosauruses learned how to use tools, that someone 'helped' them to escape.

Xila comes back from searching the edge of the clearing and mentions to Harsk, "Oh good, you know how to track. I found some stegosaurus footprints leading West. I promised gold for helping round these little ones up again, but I really do want all of them. I'll throw in some elixirs for the extra trouble though. I have those here." She reaches into her pack and pulls out two Eagle-eye (lesser) elixirs, two Healing Potion (minor) and whatever you choose for your Pathfinder Provisions (More minor healing potions unless specified otherwise). "I did notice some other tracks there too. I'm hoping that it isn't related and that the little one just wandered off."

"If you can go track down the last little stegosaurus to bring back, I'll stay here and finish mending the pen. And get their afternoon feeding ready. And clean up their droppings so that they don't try eating those. And break up any squabbles that they have with each other. And haul over some more water, the barrel is running low. And ... well, you get the idea. I'll make sure to have your promised payment ready for when you return too."

Finish up anything you want to do here at Xila's encampment. When ready to go, one of you needs to be primary tracker and make the Survival checks to track. Also, make note of any abilities that you have that speed up tracking - the challenge has a note that it assumes that the party moves at half speed while tracking and should be adjusted if that is not the case. The other three characters can aid or use other exploration activities while traveling.

Iput will Scout ahead and behind while the party moves at half-speed to allow Soosan to track their prey.

"As Soosan serves as our main tracker, I will act as a scout to see what is going on in our general area. If we are able to move at faster speeds, please make sure I am aware so that I don't lose the main party.

"Hey Xila. I noticed some blade marks on a few of your fence posts over here. Looks like someone hacked apart your fence. I'm gonna guess it was their tracks you noticed with the little tyke's. Don't know what their intention was, but we'd better skedaddle in case they're looking for fresh stego-stakes or somethin'." Harsk takes a moment to show Xila what he found, then designates the stegosaurus as his prey and starts tracking.

Survival to track, Hunt Prey +2: 1d20 + 5 + 2 ⇒ (8) + 5 + 2 = 15
Harsk doesn't have any ability to increase his speed while tracking.

Xila frowns at Harsk's words. "Yes. Unfortunately, I have to agree. Please, bring back the little one. And any other creatures that this sneak thief has gotten hold of. Go - and be safe."

Ulfhild will use the defend activity. She also has no skills or feats to help with tracking :(

Gwendellyn pats Xila's leg reassuringly and shakes her head sadly. "Do not fret, love - we'll bring the babe home safe and sound." Benji boofs in agreement and starts sniffing eagerly at anything nearby.

We'll Search (Perception +5), though Benji has a ridiculous 40 ft movement speed so this will likely involve a lot of them getting off-track or running back and forth while waiting for folks to catch up. XD