Glad to hear she's doing better, Valeska.
Is everyone else okay? Last gameplay post was two weeks ago, are we waiting for anything in particular?
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"Ugh, well at least they die easily enough. I bet that's not the last we've seen of unquiet spirits--ancient cities conquered violently seem like the perfect place for undead to rise. Nobody go off on your own, okay?" As the search resumes Bashuk maintains her role as lookout, trying as best she can to watch both her allies and the surrounding buildings.
With only one shadow remaining--so far--Bashuk doesn't hold back, quickly gathering another searing spike of fire and hurling it at the undead horror's center...well, not mass, but center of being.
As the first shadows melt away, Bashuk turns to the ones that remain--the nice thing about giving off some much light is that supernatural shadows become easy to spot, she muses. Shaping the flames into a discus, she winds back and flings it at the undead horror.
oof, lousy damage roll! especially for something that takes half damage @everyone, I vote that we focus-fire them down one at a time to minimize how many Strength-drain hits we're facing each round. I don't *think* shadows have all that many hitpoints, if we kill 1-2 a round we should be okay
Stepping back from the onrushing shadow with a curse, Bashuk thrusts her hands forward to strike the undead thing with a scattershot spray of white-hot firebolts!
Still with her back turned from the shadows, Bashuk clasps her hands in front of her and begins gathering her elemental power, sparks shedding from her eyes and hair as a white-hot orb of fire concentrates between her palms. The half-orc turns to face the dwarven shadows, eyes glowing golden as she draws back her fist to hurl burning destruction!
"Nirdosh is right, they're shades. Don't let them get close to you, their touch will drain your strength and you life. Then you come back as one of them."
Bashuk shrugs. "Everything burns, Countess. Just got to get the fire hot enough."
Bashuk grunts in acknowledgement of Nirdosh's information. "So we're fighting then? Just say the word, Countess."
"Countess," Bashuk says in her best attempt at a conversational tone as she points at one of the carved facades on a nearby wall. "Zoh awkah i mer hlah, asinain na kehlei kam lamkam ah thil pakhatkhat a um. Meikhu in sermi a si, asiloah thlalang, tiah ka ruah. Hrial awkah timhcia tein um, na sinah a rat ahcun ka puah lai." Orcish:
"Countess, don't turn to look, but there's something in the alleyway on your left. It's like a person made of smoke, or shadow, I think. Be ready to dodge, if it comes at you I'll blast it."
"I'll stay here, and keep an eye on things in the street."
"Lets try the academics' district then. There might be a broader range of subjects to learn about there? I don't know, not my area."
"If these creature's eating habits might cause it to collapse, we should go back and destroy them!" Bashuk plants her feet and points back the way they came. "The earthquakes tell me the damage is already great--if the city collapses thousands will die, and vultures will come to pick at the corpse of Belkzen's first real attempt at engaging with its neighbors!"
With a sigh, Bashuk waves off the others and moves back to the doorway. "Your light might wake them," she messages as she sets to work. Slowly, quietly, the half-orc collects several loose pieces of wood from collapsed barrels and other items and uses them to wedge the hingeless door back into place. She does the same with the shutters over the window, then steps back with a shrug. "I doubt that will hold them long if they're determined to get out, but we should at least hear it happen," She messages before rejoining the group. "Time to move on, yeah?"
Well absent their input Bashuk will relent. I'm open to any suggestions as far as sealing them in though.
Bashuk shrugs. "Okay, how do you want to do that without waking them up and trigging a fight anyway? I'm not crazy about leaving behind a nest of monsters, even if they just want to eat our stuff instead of us."
"Do we risk attacking them in tighter confines in order to get the drop on them?" Bashuk muses aloud when this information is relayed. "Maybe Sasha could drive them away--she doesn't have any metal on her, maybe they'd prefer to flee than fight her."
Bashuk considers this, then shakes her head. "If I strike I'll just burn your webs. Save the spell, we might need it soon."
everyone okay?
Holding up a hand for silence, Bashuk points to the open doorway and falls back a few steps. "I don't think the iron-eaters are gone, I hear something inside. I'm not sure if they can smell iron but if so I think they'll notice us soon. Be ready." Flexing her hand, the half-orc gathers a fist-sized ball of golden fire and watches the library carefully.
"Well I don't see anything here worth lingering over, let's move on." Bashuk moves to follow Leta, but picks a different building to take a peek into.
Bashuk grunts in agreement, her eyes not really seeing the kitchen as she thinks about Nadiya's realization. "Iron-eaters, I can see those being kill-on-sight pests for a dwarven hold especially. No wonder they're drawn here...if you see any scraps of metal, grab it. If we run into these bugs maybe we can use it to distract them."
Yeah that's a serious irl issue Kain, please take care of yourself and your loved ones!
Bashuk shrugs, bewildered. "Some kind of...bug people? Who've moved in and are scavenging iron for something? Since they're not taking the barrels or tools, just the iron, I assume they need it to make something. Or maybe they're servants of these hryngar. No way to find out except by exploring further."
"Um...Nirdosh. Did the expedition pry up the nails too?" She points to the rotting pile of wood that was once a barrel. "The iron's gone. All of it. Did your people take it to reforge?"
Apologies--I was traveling, but I'd like to reiterate what the others said; GMing takes a lot of effort but it should always be fun or what's the point? I think the 1-2 week hiatus is a good idea, and if coming back to it feels like a chore then you'll have your answer. I've enjoyed your game(s) and would be sad to see them go but even sadder if they're not bringing you joy to run.
Waving a hand to ward off the dust, Bashuk points down the street. "We don't have any maps or guideposts yet, so one direction is as good as another to start off with. I'll bring up the rear."
I'm totally okay with keeping it high-level until we hit an encounter or set piece, trying to do a room by room exploration would take a long time via PBP.
@Vayelan, I don't know if you already have these resources but I support a creator called Milby's Maps, and he has an excellent dwarven city map I could send you. I think there's a at least one dwarven city "superdungeon" map available on the Paizo site: link
I'm a big fan of establishing a SOP to speed things along I think assuming we take 10 on Perception works unless there's something critical like an ambush or special treasure or whatever present, and a marching order is good too. [Kain > Bashuk > Valeska > Leta > Nadiya] maybe? or maybe
"I'm no expert, but I think we should move down until we find some sort of earthquake damage--or run into some locals. Nothing fancy."
Whispering the passcode to herself to memorize it, Bashuk nods and gives the rest of the party a questioning look. "Nothing for it now, down we go."
"Will there be a signal or code we should give, to be allowed back in?"
Wandering the markets to keep an eye on things, Bashuk murmurs her surprise at how extensive the trading is--sure, the Flood Truce is on, but this has the look of something permanent, and she wonders how many of these stalls will still be here for the rest of the year. Ardax's favor clearly carries weight, and as the surprisingly smooth provisioning work concludes she inquires about how and where their party might access the undercity.
In the interests of having the shopping list all in one spot, looks like we're at: -wand of That's 3,655gp spent, out of a party pool of ~3,707 (so 52gp left). I vote we pick up two sunrods that can safely be dropped/thrown/left behind and that leaves 2gp for tipping our bartender. All in favor say AYE.
I'm following along with all of this, I don't have much to add except that I lean more towards a CLW wand for RP reasons but it's not a huge deal
Alas, Bashuk is currently broke as a joke, I went back to look at the discussion tab around the Clover's Crossing delve and it looks like most of the loot was items that we kept or distributed. Sounds like Kain will have the bulk of the cash after the plate mail gets sold
our only encounter in a while was the vultures and they didnt have their coin pouches on them :(
One of my favorite items is a Rope of Climbing, I don't think the party has one already but we should absolutely get one if not. That 3k price tag might be an issue however. Bashuk's Flame Jet power will likely also come in handy, she can rocket-boost around or arrest her falls, but she can't take anyone with or bestow the ability.
"The tricks I have are pretty good, but I don't have a lot of them. Let's hit the markets and see what we can find, then be on our way. Impressing Ardax could be a huge win for us."
"Thank you for confiding in us. But the word or name, hryngar... is not known to me." "Dwarves." Bashuk answer, then glances at Vreya and clears her throat. "Umm...bad dwarves? Different culture, different gods. Lots of bad blood I think. I never learned any details."
So in order to get the drop-out confirmation from those other two games I had to reach out directly, I don't think you'll hear from them again if you don't reach out first. I think a message of support to someone who's struggling is never a bad idea! But I am reasonably confident they've de facto dropped out of all their games even if they haven't said so. No judgement intended, just the impression I got.
Distracted by the Countess’s offer to Ardax and straining to catch the old orc’s answer, Bashuk can only manage a shrug at Nadiya’s query.
I actually know Miruna's player through multiple other PBP campaigns, and I don't think they're coming back. They've formally dropped out of two other games including one that I'm the GM for, and haven't posted in any of the others (this one included) in months. Depression's a demon, truly.
@GM, not that I disagree with the move but I assume that Canterwall formally recognizing Belkzen's statehood/legitimacy is something that will trigger backlash from other parties in Ustalav, possibly the dwarves we're trying to ally with, etc? OOC (Bashuk doesn't have the background for this sort of thing) but I think it's worth reaching out to our other allies first to let them know ahead of time that we're going to try for normalizing relations with Belkzen. That way they aren't caught flat-footed and we can lay some groundwork & have everyone on the same page, even if they don't agree with us.
Would that not imply that the dwarves have been sabotaging the city for three orcish generations now? I didn't get the impression that the dwarves had actually mustered into a crusade and were still in discussion phases.
Belkzen would be far from the first warlike nation to extract tribute from its neighbors in exchange for peace; it doesn’t hurt my pride to say that Canterwall is the weaker party here but if we can avoid that arrangement we should. I don’t think the temors are caused by dwarves—not living ones anyway, some sort of super-haunt is an interesting idea though! I think it’s probably centuries of neglect combined with new residents who are hard on the infrastructure.
I like the model! I made a HeroForge for Bashuk back when I first put her together, might revisit it with the new HF features. Bashuk kind of agrees that on its face this is a bad deal, but also Ardak (not to mention his boss) is much, much stronger than we are politically, militarily, and even personally. Even just a nonaggression pact and safe passage for trade would be a huge win in her book since we're currently the obvious junior partner in this relationship. But exploring the depths of Urgir also sounds like fun adventure, so maybe we can perform a service for the orcs to prove our worth?
Clearing her throat nervously, Bashuk forces herself not to hesitate when Ardax glances at her and forges ahead. "Do the earthquakes affect areas outside Urgir? Or just the city? If only the city is suffering quakes it's probably something to do with the structures themselves or, or maybe it's something worse. But I think convincing dwarves to come fix your city for you will be hard if we don't actually know what the problem is. Has anyone gone down to look?" |