I guess if we want Barzilai to be the high Templar then we need some plot device whereby Kalak is out of the picture. Perhaps the arcane preparations in the tower require total isolation or maybe he's exploring the Grey or the Black, or stalking the Dragon.
His extended absence and failure to respond to a coup amongst his Templars would be reasonable motivation to believe a full blown revolution could succeed. Whether Book5/6 will be suitable to re-skin to what happens when Kalak finds out, or you'd need to improvise from there is an open question...
...running with that thought a little further - perhaps Tithian could sub for Lord Mayor Bainilus (not sure how that works later on though) and the Asticles estate could be burnt down in place of the Victocora's. Rexus might even be Agis, or perhaps a younger family member who receives the letter from him? If Rikus' death was clearly a setup with an unwinnable fight that might trigger the protest in the arena?
It uses the players knowledge to set the seen, and they just KNOW something bad is going to happen but it's also clear that this is going to be an alternate time line.
Is it too big a problem if the party OOC know a bit of what's going on? Kalak's building a ziggurat is likely to get their attention! Maybe have the big news early on that local star gladiator Rikus and his new partner just got killed in the arena so they know it's all down to them.
A bit late to the party but hopefully not late enough to be accused of Necromancy :)
I dug out my old Dark Sun stuff a couple of months ago, (I agree all the later stuff diluted what I liked about the setting) but porting this across never occurred to me. It's a great idea and one that I'm sorely tempted to steal.
One other group in the mix is Mialari and the Lacunafex - they could morph into Athasian bards or perhaps a tribe based in the elven markets?
To me the Sacred Order could stay pretty much as is. With writing so disapproved of and the sorcerer-kings penchant for burying the past any bunch of historians would need to work in secret.
I'd also try to spread things out a bit - wilderness and survival is a big theme in Dark Sun so worth giving some stage time.
The bit I struggle with is the scope of the story. In the big picture Barzillai is a nobody and Kintargo irrelevant so the idea of a bunch of upstarts rounding up a few friends and taking him down sits OK with me, but Kalak is one of the dozen most powerful beings on the planet, a demi-god in all but name. I think I'd want to add a few more 'epic' touches like the Heartwood Spear to justify how he could be taken down.
I've never really had a chance to make use of FASB. My party has done lots of sailing but almost all had access to flight from the start at Lvl5 so all ship encounters tend to run with aerial scouting from outside cannon shot followed by a boarding attack from the party.
....except:
(Whalebone Pilk being the one exception, the scouts found nothing but his skull collection before it sank on the second night. The final night it chased them into the darkness, then dived and surfaced immediately ahead to board)
Play Report:
My players bit the Jungle Fever hook after all - they've learnt most of the back story and rescued Nattering Nam (although they are insisting that he stays on board...). Nam joining the dots for them really seemed to 'press their buttons' as a story that really summed up what Razor Coast means to them. Kudos to Owen - I hope I do it justice as it's my first try at running (or even playing) at this level. On to the island next week. More invisible flying eidolon scouts coming up.
Firstly I'd like to say how impressed that so many of the Dev's still take an interest in this page and thank Lou for all his helpful suggestions.
Back into the spoiler zone...
Thoughts:
I like the idea of a hunt for Old Makana although I think I need to work in a bit more about Razor/Bonedeuce first. My players have skipped over it each time it came up so that side of the story won't mean much to them right now. I was thinking of having them bump into Bethany who is out hunting Captain Bravancello. (incidentally that name reduced my players to hysterics on it's own - how they will react to the play I hesitate to imagine :) )
There definitely need to be some Undead Cannibal pygmies on the route too, that totem pole has stuck deep in my imagination.
So we've now run our first session since completing 'Night of the Shark'. It was all a bit vague given how open ended the situation is at that point in the arc.
Play Report:
With Jalamar dead Manu, the party Tulita opted to take the jawbone straight to Milliauka where he received the news (after an e-mail check that the player was interested) that he is the lost heir of the high cheiftain and ended up leading war parties to hunt down the remaining were-sharks.
I had Hargroves organise a conscription of noble house-guards the following morning, then a public ceremony to declare Milliauka, Moktoli and Jameson (the party Summoner) as new members of the council of elders.(Milli advised Manu to keep a low profile).
Rather to my surprise the party spontaneously approached Hargroves to ask for news of Bonedeuce and volunteered to go look for him and take his place searching for the Albatross while he returned to sort out Port Shaw. They refused Captain Mercy's offer in favour of following Hargrove's (fake) treasure map looking for Garr's treasure and the Albatross.
They chose to Scry on Bonedeuce and eventually succeeded so I had them overhear him mention Sharkjaw Docks to get them started on Jungle Fever. My main worry is that they are so focussed on their mission that they will refuse to follow it up, so I'll probably end up doing bits and bobs from various sources. On the plus side I've been broadly ignoring XP and handing out levels when it felt right so I can get them to right levels reasonably easily.
Finally got back to Night of the Shark after a couple of weeks off after Easter. Everything else in a spoiler...
PlayReport:
OK, so I went with a Lvl12 Jalamar to get the best from his daggers, circling the raft with his candle of invocation in a lantern on the raft.I also tweaked his spell list as the party had previously attacked the caverns under Beacon Island so he knew their strengths.
(True Sight, Spell Immunity, Resist Energy Electricity and Free Action, plus a Repulsion to keep summons away)
I opened up the scene with a reprise of the trip though town to the docks highlighting the scale of destruction and slaughter rather more than before. I then cut to the scripted intro and Ayton's challenge. The party immediately opened up with ranged blasts and a flying eidolon with improved invisibility. Ayton barely lasted two rounds and failed to land a single blow.
The party tulita druid had prepared by locating a large bone during the day so he summoned a dire bat and had it fly straight out to sea with the decoy. I had Jalamar send the enforcers round the raft in pursuit. Meanwhile J used his blade barrier across the land side ends of the piers as the fires were lit. Unfortunately that was a bit too effective - the players gave up all hope of saving anyone on the piers.
Things devolved into a bit of a stalemate after that - the party struggled to bring anything to bear on Jalamar while he dumped blasts but they were generally lucky with saves and were reluctant to get in the water with the shark. Eventually J ran out of ranged options and came on shore - it all ended pretty quickly after that - his melee skills were pretty ineffectual. It did drag on a bit towards the end - given the time again I'd look for ways to keep the pace up. The custom Summon Monster for a drolsharg I gave him helped somewhat but the action economy of one significant foe vs. a party was a struggle.
Hola. Okay, I need help getting my party on the right track.
in case there's anything useful:
make a red herring real and have them flee to Port Shaw? Maybe an ally of Bonegnaw who flees there or an agent of Hargrove (who was trying to expand his influence, the Ring of the Kraken would already have plans in train to expand once Port Shaw was conquered). Once there leave a trail of crumbs through a couple of intro encounters (Salty Dogs and/or Barrett's Barnacle?) to their villain then grant them closure when they corner their foe. Seed a few hooks to other stories as they go and hopefully you're off and running.
No idea if that fits your game so far, but I hope it helps.
...the scene for week 3 started with Lester sprinting across the docks to the party's ship yelling that his sewers were full of sharkmen, pursued by two men. As the first moon beams spread across the harbour they caught him just before the ship, shifted into man-sharkform and back-handed him into the harbour before stalking back towards the city. Meanwhile a doxy on the next harbour spontaneously shifted form and immediately savaged her paramour. The party were rather piqued by being ignored by the monsters and set off in pursuit (while the druid dived into the sea to look for Lester). Sharks easily defeated and Lester fished out the sea the players then considered turtling on board ship, but a plaintive 'there's people dying out there' from Lester and a suggestion that they check how Trafalgar was getting on in the temple got them moving. (Ship left with lots of silversheen and cannons loaded with grape shot salted with silver)
En route to the temple I ran the Jessica scene - again pleasantly surprised that the party remembered her, and that she'd been fostered. They incapacitated Jessica and took her with Mum to the temple. Trafalgar's stock has gone up gone up significantly now they found him with a few sailor guarding the steps of his temple, with the remains of a FlameStrike they saw in the distance still smouldering in front of him.
On into the city to warn people and send them to the temple they bumped into a pair of men running pell mell past them yelling for them to hide from the group a sharks round the corner. Druid and summoner buffed, rogue and sorcerer took to the air to see a group of weresharks surrounding one carrying a huge jawbone. Interesting change of pace with the weresharks running interference, bull rushing etc. to try to get the bone to the harbour before eventually failing (but with two escapees). The party decided their best plan now they had the jawbone was to hold out on their ship. They returned to find the ship had been defended successfully by the crew in their absence but several crewmembers had been snatched and dragged into the sea (including Confused Mary, the ship's transvestite boatswain) but not long after getting back they learnt of Jalamar's challenge on the docks.
I chose to leave them with the opening scene of seeing the raft from the docks.
It still seems to be going well - playing the monsters with objectives other than trying to kill PC's has worked out well. If I were to do it again I'd have prepped some more non-combat scenes (improvisation isn't my strength), a ruined bar full of corpses, a smashed in house, a group of dragoons slain trying to defend the townsfolk behind them etc. I think I'll reprise the trip back to the docks and add two or three of those to get the mood back next time we run.
Struggled a bit with pacing this week -I felt that I needed to take my foot of the accelerator to give them time to rest, but it turns out my players had completely missed out on the immediacy of the threat. They were largely focused on how to take advantage of the power vacuum with Bonedeuce, Chambers and the Pride plus the Albatross all at sea to launch a coup.
The summoner simply announced 'Acting Commandant Darenar changed into a wereshark and attacked me, so I killed him' and walked out. The dragoons don't really have the power to do anything about it short of a full scale assault. At the moment there's a stand-off with them visibly watching the party's ship and escorting them through town, but not pushing it any further. (Of course I could soon add a hit squad hired by Hargroves but didn't want to disrupt the build up to NotS)
They took the bait on Paol spying for Bonegnaw. I placed him in an old shed behind Barrett's Barnacle - despite adding a couple of levels they took him out quite easily (I didn't to burn too much of their resources.) They also took the opportunity to hire Lester to investigate the sewers in search in the Jawbone.
I closed with the cliffhanger of Lester running towards the ship yelling that the sewers are full of man-sharks before a pursuer smashed him to the ground. Then the full moon plays across the harbour and there is a scream in the distance, then another, and another...
The one question nobody had asked was 'when is the next full moon!'
(Oh, and then I asked everyone for their Fortitude save bonus so I could check who might have suffered more than HP damage from previous encounters with were-sharks ready for next week.)
I'm currently thinking of three encounters in the build up, dealing with little Jessica, a TBD depending on where they go, then intercepting the party of were-sharks that have recovered the jawbone. My main worry is that they may just hole up in the ship. Maybe a messenger from Zalen begging for help? But they are pretty mercenary.
I had a similar problem for the first few weeks - then suddenly one player came out with 'I've just realised we can do any of these hooks'. They had been hunting round discarding 'side-quests' in the expectation that they'd eventually find the 'main plot'. I found it was all about who they're looking to get the job from - in my case people in positions of influence. Following the web and the level by level adventure sheets has worked out well for me. We've just reached 'Night of the Shark' and the party have acquired lots of links to the plot despite mostly sailing the high seas.
Play started with the party returning from their latest exploits (with Eduardo as a mini-shoggoth in a fish tank and a baby tricerotops in the hold - long story).
Sailing back they met 'Good Day's Catch' a few hours out from Port Shaw at dawn . Initially scouted the vessel with the Tulita druid as an air elemental to see the blood stains and shark claw marks. They then had themselves rowed across in the launch, lifting the hatch to the hold so I read them Nick's description of the hold verbatim - that had a real impact - no PC's going anywhere near the hold! The eidolon did get sent in and the bursting corpse clearly got their imaginations going :) They spotted McDugyl in the corner and persuaded him onto the deck (Nat20 diplomacy) where he promptly hugged the dwarven sorceror before collapsing writhing on the deck begging to be chained. He got 'Hold Personed' instead. I then had the party notice they were on a sinking ship, just before a wereshark ripped through the bottom of their launch. Various flying/dimension door abilities got everyone back to the ship but not before the eidolon and a crewman got bitten, and the paralysed McDugyl got coup de graced. All went over pretty well and the threats and curses from the sharkmen definitely got them focused.
Arriving in Port Shaw they promptly split into four groups of one PC each to spread the warning. (DM nightmare - tried as hard as I could to give each facet 5-10 minute slots...)
Halfling rogue/alchemist took the crewman to Trafalgar for healing to be told 'too powerful for me to break the curse - I've seen several others in the last few weeks too', then returned to his lab to work on paralysing poisons.
Tulita druid went to the shanty town recalling that Milliauka claimed to have a cure. Also looking for details of what Dalang is looking for. Learnt that Milliauka can cure people but only has three doses and that the jawbone has been stolen and is probably in the sewers.
Dwarf Sorceror went to the harbour master to report the loss of the fishing vessel. Got a guilt trip about McDugyl's large family and a reminder of the attitiude to tulita - Creely knew the immigrant crewmen by name but didn't know or care about the tulita crew. On the way back I had Jalia plant a note on her warning about Paol - Bonegnaw escaped long ago so I'm using him as the distraction. Being very un-stealth she completely failed to catch him so far.
Finally the summoner and eidolon set off to the Fort, met the tulita lacedons en route then went with Darenar to a secure location. The eidolon and multiple summons edged the resultant fight just (AC30+ without buffs). He's now in a cellar trying to think how to explain that he's just killed the acting commandant....
And that's where we finished last night. All in all it went very well - seeing lots of loose ends suddenly pull together into a coherent plot has really worked very well. They've remembered far more details from months ago than I expected and the urgency definitely came across
I like the spoilery thought Lou, I inverted it already and had them receive reports of elite groups going in (mainly to get my Tulita PC paranoid ) but coming back out might be perfect :)
Spoiler Question:
I notice the Dalamar Jalang has a candle if invocation in his items list. I assume the intent is he's using this - it is his big night after all, +2 all rolls and a 15th lvl caster gets nasty + Gate? ( a Drolsharg feels appropriate)
Thanks for the suggestions Lou - with the party at 10th level would you recommend bumping the Dalang to 12th or 13th level? I have a moderately optimised eidolon and a buffed druid who likes giant octopus anywhere wet to deal with. (The rogue/alchemist and sorceror cause me fewer issues)
Lot's of spoilers:
The raft is one area I worry about, between being at sea a lot and our play style the only main character the party bonded to is Bonedeuce so the raft will be a bit thin. On the other hand they have named most of their ship's crew so I think they will have to provide.:)
They found the lair under the lighthouse and wiped out everything except Jalamar so he knows what they can do, so I'll be trying my best to optimise his spell lists although higher level clerics aren't my forte - I've got a week left to prep for a bit of research there.
They have absolutely no idea about the jawbone due to their 'avoid anything linked to the sewers'.I'm going to have to lay it on thick with the intro bits as they sail back into town and probably have them intercept were-sharks returning with the bone.
Ironically, I had the opposite problem to Peyton: my party (lead by the halfling rogue worried about the depth) declared that they were important adventurers and going down into the sewers was beneath them (pun intended). The number of plot threads that lead through them cuts off lots of options. On the other hand they were immediately keen to set sail. That said I used the 'Minerva's Joy' introductory hook and had the captain reward them with shares in his ship - they bought him out completely with early rewards,so they had a ship available almost from day one.
Just about to hit my party with Night of the Shark, and would appreciate any advice from people who've run through it. They've just reached 10th level so I'm planning on bumping the boss up a level or two and I noted earlier in the thread that some ranged options could be useful. Any other thoughts?
My party is still going strong,well into 8th level now (we usually play 2-3 hours a week so we take a while) and still seem to be enjoying it. Broadly they are focused on sailing the Razor - the idea of having their own ship and crew seems to have been something they really like although sadly I've not had much luck getting them to invest in the wonderful characters in Port Shaw. At the moment I'm dealing with an eidolon and shapeshifting druid (primal warrior on a giant octopus gets very messy)both buffing their AC well above 30 at times so I'm looking to shake things up a bit and interested in other peoples thoughts. The next bit has lots of spoilers
Stuff:
The party are currently under Beacon Island making easy work of the massed sharks so I'm looking to add a few casters to the mix. Looking through the Dalang prestige class it struck me that Jalamar of all people has no levels in this! Are there any reasons not to rebuild him using some levels of this? I'm thinking that acolytes should really be priests of Dajobas rather than lesser dalangs and also perhaps add in a sorceror from Drango's crew (all weresharks of course). I also intend to give Saegen a more active role in the defence. Thinking on how he could flank the party led me to another thought - how did the sharks in the breed pool get there? There is no aquatic link to the outside world!
Just to second Necromental's point - I have three of your adventures so went to the Kickstarter keen to support but was put off by the price point with automatic inclusion of an already published book I don't want.
Thanks for the suggestions Lou - Entombed was actually the first adventure I played with the pathfinder play-test rules with one of my players as the DM. (My mage saw the last rune in the middle of the last fight - the party won through but it's tricky to say if he 'survived' or not.) I'm sure a few locations can be pilfered - a necromancer should always have plenty of canopic jars, plus lots of eyeballs in glass bottles that watch you round the room :) I do have HotR but haven't read that story - I'll take a look. Incidentally was Tarath Vreen intended to be a local or outsider? I had been assuming the later as the name didn't strike me as very Tulita
The phrase 'teeming with un-dead' has been on my players lips for several weeks - the expectations are pretty clear. The halfling rogue's narrow escape from the bone portcullis was certainly met with great delight.
Whilst it feels like a large necromancer's dungeon filled with traps and un-dead is a much over-done trope of the game I have been struggling to find many examples I could convert. At the moment I'm toying with using the upper levels of Lost Caverns of Thracia to get the antique feel of ancient ruins but it'll need a fair bit of tweaking to up the CR's appropriately. Still needs some thought on the various factions within the Lost Caverns - I don't want to distract from the core setting with extra layers of history.
I'm also thinking that I need to work in some evidence for the players to find that the surface dwellings associated with the ruins were obliterated in a volcanic incident at Pele cleaned house.
Hi Guys, my PC's have really bought in to the Tarath Vreen side of things....
Details:
...but have been delayed in their investigations by their determination that going into the sewers is beneath them (pun intended). After all their persistent searching for other entrances I gave in and gave them a rumour of a portal buried under hallucinatory terrain being discovered while clearing a plantation. I'm now thinking they will be rather underwhelmed by the complex when they get there (I rather oversold it at the beginning) Has anyone put any thought into expansions of this area that I could steal :)
On the more general discussions above I'll share a few thoughts.
The sandbox nature of the adventure has rather confused my players too - about three weeks in the other regular DM remarked that he'd finally realised that they really could chose any one of the hooks rather than waiting for the big plot to bite them. They still tend to be a bit scatter gun, which probably reflects on me more than the campaign. I need to be a bit more proactive in trying to create a more cohesive theme.
I know nothing about electronic publishing but I do find it strange in these days that indexing references can't be made to auto-update as content is moved about. They really would be a boon with this product. I'm doing all my prep with the search function on the pdf and lots of sticky note bookmarks in the real book for actual play.
The focus on NPC's to define the setting (e.g. the Waveriders) probably doesn't play to my strengths as a DM although I loved the reading. My players have repeatedly declined to investigate off their own bat - as suggested above I may have to force that issue when they get back to town.
Other thoughts - perhaps vignettes for other 'out of town' locations might be nice to help convey the unique setting to the players would be nice.
All in all this a great product with a unique feel and I'm having a fun time running it - just sharing my experiences in the hope that others can learn from my mistakes.
The party is heavily invested in flying resources already so they circumvented the whale by flying to the beach from several miles out. They did try a lot of aerial scouting that allowed the ambush to get into place.
Heading into the forest tracks they got badly mauled by a random encounter with a shambler and hunkered down for the night with a few bad dreams for their pains.
Heading up to the altar they made short work of the hags on the drums but then grabbed the captives and ran - they are very strong on avoiding mission creep, they were there to rescue the kids so they upped and left actively ignoring the big baddy in the ancient lab (and then complaining at the lack of treasure!) Huanapoki sicked the whale on them as they left but creative use of weighted cargo nets slowed it down enough for them to get clear. Not sure I really made much of a job making the environment feel real to them.
Back in Port Shaw they jumped at the kidnapping hook on the Hargrove estate. They headed out into the Blacksink so I made sure I had lots of descriptive 'vignettes' ready to add colour this time. (I opted on a theme of unnatural hunting and red/black e.g. a spasming sallow butterfly on a branch being slowing penetrated by tendrils of a crimson slime mold or a black egret stalking through lily pads before being abruptly engulfed by a giant catfish.) That combined with the varied encounters worked very nicely for the journey.
We're currently part way through the temple with the sacrifice - they looked to break in via the roof but are rapidly realising that their eidolon mincing machine can barely hit the Big Bad.
Doing my prep for arriving on the island and wanted to check the whale - am I correct in saying a ship is normally a colossal object? If so is the whale incapable of ramming them? (DC25 CMB +24 but -20 for two sizes smaller)
Quick summary of events last night. The party jumped at the Dolentla island hook in preference to drug dealers or sewer dwellers - looks like they fancy heroic, yet they seem ambivalent to mentions of the Waveriders and distrust Zalen. Might have to try Bethany on them next.
Anyhow they set sail with Jacinth at the helm and rapidly and encountered the Iron Bastion. Jacinth ordering the Tulita party member to help the good mate secure his property made an impression! Eventually they agreed to go talk with the captain. Manufacturing a brief moment with the mate outside the cabin they incapacitated the captain then rushed the mate back in and announced he had collapsed with highly contageous 'Red Spot' hence his strange behaviour (bluff 30+). The crew sought sanctuary on the party ship abandoning the natives to their terrible fate ;)
I may have misjudged things after that, using the stow-away encounter next. A bit too much deja vu after the Harok McFarrow line. I used the lacedons on the way to that too so the shipwrecked survivors may be overkill. Plenty of variation once they reach the island so that should balance out soon.
Many thanks for your continuing support on this thread Lou. I'll post how things work out.
So just to get things straight in my head...
Spoiler:
'The Night of the Shark' is actually a ritual that includes a full moon, but also some other non-specific components? Hence the Kiss is much closer to a curse rather than the more typical lycanthropy as you explained previously.
I am looking for a little advice on the Kiss. My players are going after the shark plots and getting on good terms with Bonedeuce. We also have a native Tulita in the party so getting detailed info out of Miliauka after saving him from Darenar.
1 they have asked Mili exactly when is the Night of the Shark
2 they have suggested to Bonedeuce that he gets Zalen to check out Darenar under some TBD pretext (what will the Kiss detect as - disease, curse, both or neither?)
They are looking at some sort of isolation unit 'solution' to the issue of potential un-cureables. They are still only 5th level and working hard to avoid fights so I'm thinking I need to get them out of town for a bit (Dolentla Island perhaps) to slow progress along that path a little.
On a more general topic they were interested in which totem (turtle/dolphin/whale) Miliauka follows - any thoughts?
.... oh and the only party member bitten so far was the hippogriff animal companion. That's really got us scratching our heads trying to visualise the potential outcome :)
All I can really suggest for a paper copy is the boring stuff like page references in the adventure by level summary and a big index but I can imagine that would be a mammoth task, bordering on impossible for a book this size. Personally I'm happy to see creative energies going into making a setting that comes to life off the page as well as RC does. The hard copy and pdf works well for me - I still prefer reading a hard copy but with the electronic version as a backup I can search to hunt down other references.
Just completed our third session of Razor Coast so I thought I'd share experiences so far.
Started out with the party at 5th level arriving on Minerva's Joy, but the first week was a bit of a disaster. I tried giving them complete freedom to wander but the mix of new PC's, new town, whispers etc proved more than my 'Improvisational Bandwidth' could cope with.
Second week was much smoother - they followed up on Harok McFarrow and everyting flowed much more easily. One thing that did draw comment in Toe's Reach...
Spoiler:
Harok, then his cousin, then Jessica all needing talking out of deep shock whilst entirely plausible in game felt rather repetative - I opted to skip to naration at that point
Third week finishing off in Toe's Reach before back to town and keeping up with the effects of whispers on party actions was again a bit of a challenge but better than the first time round. (For example they ended up talking to Gregory Bonedeuce in the Kraken's Gullet and instead of following the whisper I'd just fed them about Deepwarden's ring they flipped onto Zalen Trafalgar and I ended up relating the fate of the Waveriders.
So far they are bending over backwards to get in good with the dragoons...
Thoughts so far - the NPC's are working well so far and it's been a great read as DM. You really need to know your stuff though - the urban sandbox style can cover a very wide range quickly. In preparation I've also found the electronic version essential to run searches for key words. For example the full story of Harok McFarrow is spread over different sections of several chapters.
Received my copy today (#328) in the UK - slight scrunching of the corners like most of the other recent posters. On the one hand a bit disappointing, but on the other it would look like that within a couple of weeks once I start running it.
I got my shipping email from Bill on the 18th of August but still have no book.
Is this a normal delay for getting stuff to the UK?
Is there any way to track shipping?
Took 10 days for me. I got a tracking info email when it was shipped.
Similar here too, got the notification on the 4th but didn't start moving on the tracking for a few days. Mine shows as arriving in customs in the UK this afternoon - guess who goes on holiday for a week tomorrow :(
I did a bit of digging round in Wikipedia when looking at the design rules - Lou's HMS Surprise is pretty typical, a ratio of just under 4:1 seemed pretty standard for Napoleonic ships from sloops to ships of the line, staying much the same when you go back to the Wasa. Most every other dimension that early is just speculation. Cutty Sark as a true speed machine has a ratio of 6:1 but whether that's allowed by the iron frame I couldn't say.
One thing I had been wondering about was whether the decks below the waterline counted in the dimensions - I take it from Lou's counting the draft, that they do.
With regard to actual ship dimensions I'd pretty much given up on the 20' cubes as anything more than target locations. Bethany Razor's pirate hunting sloop "Quell's Whore" is stat'ed up as 40'x60'x40'. Even a dutch merchant's fluyt would be embarrassed by a ratio like that :)
Just picked up the add-on email for Fire as She Bears. Link and download all went like clockwork. Not sure when I'll ever get to read it though, that makes 800+ pages of content downloaded this week :) Very impressed by what I've read so far.
Just downloaded the Players Guide, Campaign Setting and Heart of the Razor fine. No sign of the Fire as She Bears yet (Dead Man's Chest and Map Folio showing as still to come). Not had chance to read anything yet.
