DM Visser's page

Sorry guys, I know I can disappear sometimes, it's just been a busy weekend/week.

While she glances over the rest of you and puts a petite scrap of cheese into her mouth, Gabriella nods politely to all of you, then Marcaius again in particular. "Nice to meet you all. I am happy to have met such fine people along the road. It is certainly... not what I expected when I first set out, but a pleasure nonetheless. Even if some of your company is more..." She glances around at the quiet monsters sitting away from her. "Brutish, than others. I certainly understand. Why, I myself brought along these two for the same reason, though my confidence was certainly misplaced." One of the men shoots her a nasty look after she looks away - she does not seem to notice, however.

"But we are not here to criticize, I suppose." She cocks her head, examining the party again, considering. "Tell me, when do you think that you will complete this task? My family always has good work, especially with the Darkness encroaching upon us, and good adventurers are hard to find."

For the sake of "How much time is this going to take", I think the fatigue might stop you at least for the night - tomorrow once you're rested you can probably keep going through fatigue, but it's late and you've been travelling all day, so I don't know if you could cut through this big of a tree in 4 minutes.

With everyone working together, it seems as though some significant damage has been made on the tree. The ground is covered in woodchips, and it seems probable that tomorrow morning the tree will be completely out of your way. But as the sun dips behind the horizon, the chill of night sweeps in.

"Ah, yes, it appears as though we have not been properly introduced! I am Gabriella Henderthane, of house Henderthane." She offers her hand and smiles amiably at Jaro and the rest of the party.

"I can't say I've head of your house, though the name tickles my brain a bit. Still, it is certainly pleasant meeting someone with manners out here in the wilderness." She turns to her guards, having tired themselves out from chopping, and shouts, Richtor! Gob! Fetch me some food from the carriage so that I might dine with these fine folk!" The two guards nod and run off, bringing back both a small table of bread and cheese, a wineskin, and a small cloth blanket, which she uses to avoid dirtying her fine clothes upon the ground.

"But I am interested - where are you heading? And how did you find yourself in the company of such..." She pauses for a moment, looking about at the party members and searching for the right word, "Interesting folk? Most people I know would be skeptical of such a group, even with fine and distinguished folk among you." She glances at both Marcaius and Dorian, her words seeming to strain against the definition in her mouth. "And what are the rest of your names?"

Now you witness Visser's patented "Making up rules she's sure exist but can't find anywhere so they are made up and hopefully sound legit"©

The lady in red nods and gestures to the guards. "Go on, make yourselves useful, then." They nod and move to attempt to cut through the fallen tree with their battle axes. The sun is slowly setting in the west, sending the sky into beautiful cascades of orange and purple.

While certainly not as suited to the task as axes, falchions could do some damage to the tree - though it may take as much as full day or two off of your journey depending on how strongly you roll (Damage/Sunder +DC 11 (+1 with each check) fort save for fatigue every con modifier x 3 attacks (minimum 3).). Once fatigued, you can't cut until you're not. That's reasonable, right?

Guard's Cutting Down Tree: 1d8 + 2 ⇒ (8) + 2 = 101d8 + 2 ⇒ (4) + 2 = 61d8 + 2 ⇒ (6) + 2 = 81d8 + 2 ⇒ (8) + 2 = 101d8 + 2 ⇒ (5) + 2 = 71d8 + 2 ⇒ (2) + 2 = 41d8 + 2 ⇒ (6) + 2 = 81d8 + 2 ⇒ (4) + 2 = 6

They seem to be making some progress in their first round of cutting.

The other guard nods at Dorian - "Yeah, mate, I think I've got one somewhere around here." He rushes to the carriage, rummaging around a bag hidden away in the driver's seat. Moving back with a soft, golden potion in hand, he quickly feeds it down the man's unconscious throat.

Potion: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (8) + 1 = 9

The second guard coughs back into life, blood coming up as his wounds heal from within. "Ugh. Richtor, you arse. You told me this would be easy. Easy day, easy pay.

The first guard sighs, sitting back on his legs with relief. "Sorry, Gob. Hope you can forgive me."

The lady in red gives Marcaius a nervous look at his words, as if she expects that smile to become a mouth full of werewolf teeth. But, as it doesn't, she sighs and looks back to Jaro. "Well, I suppose I still owe you some small token. Here -" she takes off a small signet ring on her finger, bringing it forward to offer to the party. "If you ever find yourself in need of a favor, you can ask it of me and my house. After all, in these uncertain times, it is always important to have strong allies." She gives a small curtsy. "You can bring that to any guard in the capital. They will take you where you need to go."

The woman sighs and rests her head on her hand, looking to the downed guard and the other man, still cowering slightly, who slowly moves to an awkward standing position. "It is unfortunate. But if they had not given me false advertising -" she glares at the remaining guard, and he flinches, "They would not be in this situation in the first place. It is their own fool fault."

She turns back to the party, unsure of who exactly to look at, before her eyes land on Jaro again, being the only one she has really addressed directly. "Tell me, could you and your crew perhaps... escort me? Just back to Egorian. It is less than a week's travel from here, just past that little hamlet of Kelian - not that anyone would want to go to that nowhere town. I would pay you for your trouble, and if you are taking this road, it won't be too far out of your way."

Eh, animal companions are definitely more trusting of their masters so if the character who commands it gives it a potion, it would probably be fine. Anyone else, however, might be a different story.

I guess it was never brought up? I've never really done the XP thing but considering the openness of this campaign, I figured I'd try it if people were fine with it, and it would allow for training quests/fights, etc. Plus I can give out xp bonuses for stuff, but I will try to keep it normalized. It'd be medium progression, is everyone cool with that?

It definitely helps me if I feel the need to fiat something - I didn't realize how low Jaro had got, I'm not trying to kill anybody this early on >_>;

Whoops, I think I missed Falstaff last round, but in any case, the remaining two orcs are dead, so...

Combat Ends
135 Experience Each

As the three combatants pile onto the orange orc, reducing him to a pile of quivering jelly, Mani's sharp teeth find their mark and the purple orc cries out in pain, falling to the ground and bleeding all over the place, leaving a bitter taste in the wolf's mouth.

Mani needs to make a fort save, DC 12.

Cries of shock come from behind the log, as the woman, having seen the short but brutal combat take place in front of her. "Oh, my, that looked awful!" She points at the unconscious Jaro, running around the log to survey the scene despite the hesitance of her remaining guard. "Is he all right?" She gives a start as she notices the two dark creatures (Only ONE of which has wings but both have an odd skin color so it might be a bit unsettling because evil things like drow also have dark skin so it's kind of racist, but you know how these things go) and the hyena-like humanoid, but attempts to conceal it.

Start of Round 3

Mani bites the purple orc, but fails to bring him down. He roars in pain and despite the bite wound looking like it should bring him down, he continues to fight on, swinging wildly at the dog.

The orange orc laughs, saying "You think you can best me, little man?" almost appearing not to notice the threatening strix rolling up behind him. He takes another powerful swing at Jaro.

Round 2 Start

As Choraak whips the orc, throwing him off balance, Marcauis brings his flail down and crushes the head of the orc into nothing but a splatter of skull and dark blood. His body stands there, wavering comically for a moment before falling to the ground. (Green Orc Is DEAAAD)

Aviz's fauchard easily finds its mark, still covered in black blood from the previous slaying of the other orc, slicing through his new opponent like a hot knife through butter, leaving nothing but a gurgling corpse. (Red Orc is DEAD)

The orange orc engaging Jaro laughs at the paladin's attempts to strike him. "You think you can fight me? I am made strong by my blood!" The orc swings his blade back...

The purple Orc guffaws as both the arrow and the wolf's bite fail to penetrate his rough-hewn armor. "Jugnog is stronger than long-ears, and his puny dog!" he shouts, bringing his falchion down towards Mani.

Round 1 Start

Good suggestion, Cho, I'll put those down for future reference. As for action resolve order for this one :
Flastaff - 19
Choraak - 18
Jaro - 12
Aviz - 10
Dorian - 7
Marcaius - 4
Not sure where Aviz is - you should move him when you post - but I moved him to a place behind one of the groups of two orcs. I have also used colors to identify the enemies (trying to get them to use numbers, but I'll see what I can do about that later), so that if there is a question about who you're going for, use the colors as your guide in text!

Dorian's arrow and Jaro's bolt strike the orc true, immediately causing him to keel over in pain (Orc Pink KO), If Mani would like to move somewhere else that's fine..

One orc charges at Dorian, shouting wildly in orc, drawing his Falchion.

While another rushes Jaro!

Another pulls a second javelin from the strap on his back and chucks it at the annoying songbird.

One pulls out his blade and charges Marcaius,

While the final one rushes blindly at Aviz, getting caught by the Strix's quick reflexes and immediately struck down by the man's sharp fauchard [ooc](Orc Blue 100% Dead as Hell)

"I suppose we could turn back... but we are in such a hurry, this is an important matter that must be taken care of quickly." After a moment, she shakes her head. "No, I suppose this will delay us more than taking another road. Thank you very much, young man." She turns momentarily, talking to her guards. They begin speaking for a moment when...

Six javelins fly out of the woods! While inaccurate, two find their mark, striking one of the guards and sending him flying to the ground. The woman screams. In between the trees, it is obvious that large figures have thrown these, and as they step out from the shadows, you can tell by their protruding tusks and mottled skin that they are a pack of 6 vicious-looking orcs.

"Hope you stronger than the last humans!" they shout, before moving to attack.

So, initiative, I guess? None of you were surprised cause you knew about it, but the guard was, so there is a surprise round to act in (which the orcs threw their javelins in)

Orc Initiative: 1d20 ⇒ 20

Grah sorry I am really bad, I had a busy last week and had trouble getting to a computer, but I AM here and I AM dedicated to running this game, so, just gotta get posted up and we can continue, super sorry, guys.

It is late afternoon/early evening - so it is still light out. I have updated the roll20 in the event of a fight, so feel free to move your characters around there. You also have full control over cart placement as well.

A female voice rings out from beyond the leafy tree - "Oh, hello there! Yes, you, in the armor! Could you perhaps give us a hand? We seem to be in a bit of a pickle and these two worthless 'Knights' seem to have trouble figuring out how to move this carriage with the one brain they share between them!"

The days are long and the nights are lonely. The road sprawls out before you, winding and long, but you can see signs of life just off of it. The bloom of spring is in full swing, with fruits and berries plentiful, even just a few feet off the dirt path. You occasionally meet and pass by other carts, some big and some small, but all of them seem to ignore you - possibly out of fear, or maybe simply because they have better things to be worrying about. 5 Days into your journey, almost a week out, Aviz, flying ahead and out of sight of the rest of you, spots something - though it is soon apparent to all of you only moments after he sees it - an enormous, lush tree has fallen across the road, blocking all movement ahead.

Sorry, I broke my own "once a day" rule.

With the confirmation that everybody is ready to leave, and the potions purchased, you set off into the night. The moon glistens above you and the road sprawls out before you into darkness, as the sounds of nature - the wolves howling at the night sky, the rustling in the grass off of the road, and the occasional "hoot!" of an owl ringing out in the distance, you begin your journey north in the cold night.

A few details for your encounters along the road;
1: Who is Scouting ahead + a perception check from them.
2: If you are traveling strictly at night or will change to day later on.
3: Watches while sleeping; if you have them, what order will they be in?
This first town will come up in a few days, but for game flow purposes, I'll roll for how many days between encounters you have, skip to that day, and you can deduct your food accordingly or make a survival check for each day to forage food and water.

The town is considered a Village with a base value for items being 500. It is possible that they have potions here (75% chance) though wands are out of their price range (and yours, too, I guess.)

CLW Potion: 1d100 ⇒ 99

Yes! CLW potions can be found here.

"There is a trading trail that goes from here through Nidal - many merchants use it to transport goods between the two countries, with several towns along the way to stop for supplies and possible sales. Taking that, plus some creative pathfinding past the border of Nidal into Varisia, it would take just a little over a month to arrive in Yida."

"It's just you six - we're trying to be discreet here, and unfortunately the more peolpe involved, the more of a risk we take."
It's a regular cart so it's just pulled by the donkey - there's no need for a driver as long as the donkey doesn't run off.

Hershel snorts amiably, his light grey fur slightly rough and plush to the touch.

"Apologies, Mr. Vasilis. Well, then..." Mable says softly, glancing around at each of you. "If we are all in agreement, I am happy you are all willing to help. I trust that you will perform this task to the best of your ability, as it is an obviously extremely important matter to us." She performs another small bow, as much as she can while already being curled over. "I would request that you leave within the next couple of days, but if you need time to prepare yourselves for the journey, I would understand. Hershel here," She pats the donkey on its head gently, "will be waiting for you in the town stables whenever you are ready to depart." She sighs deeply, seeming as though she had gained a large amount of weight on her shoulders. "As for me, it is far past my bed time, so I must be going. Thank you. Your help does not go unappreciated." She nods to her two cloaked friends, and begins to walk back into the alleyway.

So, unless you have more questions for her, she's heading out.

Mabel raises her hands. "That is their choice. If they choose for you to have the money, then so be it. I have prepared a small collection of 100 gold for each of you now, to be supplemented by another 900 each once you reach the city and make the delivery."

She nods to Falstaff and Dorian. "Good. I am happy to have you both on board. However, we would be remiss to not repay for services due. We believe in rewarding those that help the cause."

Turning back to Aviz, she simply states, "Payment upon delivery. But we will get it done once our agent informs us that the mission was completed successfully."

That's all right - I'll take control of your character if I have to, but for the most part you can just sleep in the back of the cart or something. You've let me know several times, including before I actually picked you, so It's fine for now.

Also, these rolls are giving me a lot of hope for this campaign.

"Thank you, sir knight. It is pleasing to know that you will help. And of course, we can discuss our... Goals with you.

The woman who none of you have ever seen or heard of before shakes her head and her expression hardens. "Make no mistake, hatchling. War is coming to us all. One way or another, we will all have to fight. Those closest to the noble houses know how real and how dangerous this is." She sighs after a moment. "Along with the gold for your trouble, which will be no insignificant amount, we will also give you contacts. We cannot give you men, and I doubt that you would take them even if offered, but we can outfit your fighters with better weapons and armor - armor crafted specifically for your kind, magicks that can stop even the strongest blade. You will need it when the dark fires and bloody spears come to your lands."

Turning to Aviz, she shakes her head. "Only the so-called 'dangerous ideas' as Cheliax's leaders would call them. There is a blade or two, but nothing will get up and bite you.". She glances down at the sharp tip of the fauchard in the winged man's hands. "Nothing you haven't seen before, I'm sure."

Henceforth Dorian will be referred to as the "Railway Conductor". It is his destiny.

She steps forward slightly to look Aviz closer in the eye. "Inside the cart is a crate. Inside that crate are contained a few things. Trophies, mostly. A few books of our tenants. Things that are important to us, buried within some silks and spices. We simply wish to preserve our culture, and our ideals, in the face of this war. Isn't that all your people wish for?" She shakes her head. "Our contact is going to wait at the temple of Desna in that city every day until you arrive. Her name is Jeyoré. I have written a call and response that will allow you to recognize each other once you arrive. On the road you will be just another band of traders, mercenaries, whatever. If you keep a low profile, no one will think to look twice at you. I'm sure that some of you are very experienced in going unnoticed," She looks pointedly at Choraak.

The spouts of chatter, echoing lightly across the square, are suddenly interrupted by a loud braying from a wide space between two of the buildings surrounding the town center. A light set of footfalls can be heard from the alleyway, someone or something limping, slowly, across the dirt ground.

Into the pale light steps a cloaked woman, leaning heavily on a crooked walking stick, her grey hair, clouded eyes, and drooping facial features showing the effects of a age upon her. Flanking her on either side are two identical hooded figures, both towering over her in height, identical to the ones that had delivered letters to you earlier today.

One leads a donkey hauling a small, covered wagon behind it - the obvious source of the braying. ”Thank you all so much for coming. I hope the night finds you well?” The elder crone laughs slightly. “I have work for you.” She gestures at the cart behind her. “Myself and my friends are members of a… group of like-minded individuals. We are few in number, but strong in ideal. However, while we have been able to hide our symbols and our artifacts in secret for a long time, with this war approaching, and Chelaxian conscription squads and their zealous inquisitors rooting out ‘corruption’, we fear our exposure. However, we cannot just allow our memories, our culture to die.”

She points at all of you, in turn, very slowly before continuing. “That is where you come in. We have a center of meeting, in Varisia; the city of Yida, north of Veldraine. I need you to take this, discreetly, to that town. Now, we don’t have much to pay you with -” She holds up a 6 equally small bags of gold “-But it will be enough to get you on the road, and there will be much more when you arrive.” She nods and coughs, her speech over. The old woman lets herself rest, looking at each of you expectantly, her cloaked friends standing motionless beside her.

Also! I'm not sure who is who on roll20 for the most part, so for now I just made up the characters and put them to be controlled by all players. I'm sure no one will abuse that (it's just the icons, honestly)

Probably a low Kn (Local) check should get you there if you have it, but you may have seen them before. Like the man said, they're usually brutally murdering everyone that isn't part-hyena, though they're usually found a lot further south so it is at least a strange sight to see one here. And speaking full sentences in common. But if you've never seen one before and aren't super aware of what they look like, it may just be some strange beast you've never seen before. Depends how hard benefit of the doubt has bitten you in the butt before.

As well, it seems like everyone's posted in the gameplay except for Ser Jaro. Once he posts (Ideally today), things will start to happen.

Well, in that case, I went ahead and put together a roll20 game. It's just a placeholder right now, but combat should be starting soon.

As well, feel free to post introductions in roleplay - I'll wait to officially start until everybody is confirmed, but the introduction is just creepily hanging out anyway.

here is the roll20 game join link.

Well, if roll20 is persistent, and everyone is comfortable using it, it might be better. My computer is already a bit laggy opening the google page, but I wasn't sure what the other options were. I do like Roll20's format for live games, so putting it up for Pbp sounds good to me.

I've used roll20 before once for a long-distance session, but I wasn't sure how accessible it was for this longer-form format. I guess people can vote about what they prefer.

Sorry for taking longer than I expected, but after much arduous deliberation, I have finalized the list and have decided on players. Will:

Dorian Farahan: the Elven Mooncaller Druid

Choraak: the Strix Bard

Jaro Vasilis: the Cheliaxan Paladin of Ragathiel

Marcaius: the Azlanti Cleric of Groetus

Falstaff the Wanderer: the Gnoll Warden and Trapper Ranger of Desna

Aviz: the Strix Airborne Ambush Fighter

Please report to the Discussion threads?

Thank you all for applying! This was a difficult choice, but in the event that a player might drop out, I will come back here first for those who're still willing to play.

The light of the waning moon shines gently down onto the empty village square, sending low shadows sprawling from the buildings surrounding it. For such a bustling, crowded place during the day, the stillness that night brings makes this place feel like a ghost town.

It is nearly midnight when the first of you arrive, perhaps out of some sense of punctuality, or you simply misread the moon's position in the sky. Either way, it seems as though your contact has not yet appeared. Nothing to do now except wait.

Welcome to the discussion thread! I'm sure things happen here, but I'm not sure what they are.

Couple of things - I will be running in block initiative (NPCs go then PCs go) with bosses or leaders having their own initiative. I think this will be quick and allow for faster combats in the situation that not everybody is available at one time - however, each person will still roll initiative and their actions will resolve in order.

As well, while I haven't done this before, looking around it seems like most people use google drawings in order to do tactical movement. So I'm going to do that, put your icons on there, and you can move yourselves, I think? Sounds good. And again, I haven't done a Pbp, so if you have suggestions I will gladly take them. Thanks a lot for joining me on this campaign, and I look forward to having a great time with all of you!

Ok, Faralen W. Ealdewood is Done. I tried going another route with background than I usually do and hopefully it is something that couples with 'Interesting'. One of my hands is buggered up from work today, got a wire stuck a few centimeters through it and its been in pain since which has made me make all sorts of errors in typing, then I have to redo it, and then it starts becoming strenuous and time consuming, and blah blah blah. Needless to say, I Blame my hand as I would have wrote more and in better depth. But, bleh, It's done. So, Huzzah.

Min, I don't see the background on yours? Am I missing something on your character page? I'll give you a little bit to post it up as I still need to deliberate, but otherwise...

TIME!

I'll be back with who I picked in an hour or two.

OK, I really hate to do this to you guys, but I'm afraid I have to backtrack on my allowing for EVERYONE to be accepted. I really like everyone's characters, and it will be tough to make decisions, but the time involved with making a campaign work combined with myself being a newbie to this format, I feel like I need to try and deliver a great experience to 6 people, rather than something that would be sub-par and probably hard to follow for 12.

Still, Applications will continue to be open until tonight, and tomorrow I'll go over everything and make an announcement about who I picked. Again, I'm sorry, but I think this is a much better path to take and I probably shouldn't have made that announcement to begin with. So the applications close for real in 6 hours or so (probably if you make it when I'm asleep there's some wiggle room) and then I will let everyone know in the morning.

Although I might have to ask either Borehole or Wyllen to switch up character portraits because that will be a bit confusing with them under the same portrait >_>

Thinking about it, but I can see advantages to either. I think for now I might let the party stay in one thread for the first level or two - there may be a bit of roleplaying ick if people post over each other or get ninja'd. But since the first quest is basically a short walking tour (spoilers), I can see how combat runs/roleplaying goes. After that, I can decide how to switch things up if necessary, and keep people in the same game world, even if the group splits into two pieces. But yeah, I've seen my share of drops, so I'll play it by ear. It's just 12 people, how bad could it be?

Over half of you are outcasts in some form or another, you're gonna get evil-eyed out of 60% of the towns you go too unless you're just a big group of suspicious hoods and robes concealing wings, horns, etc. And one Paladin. Should be fun.

DM Visser wrote:

As of this moment, all who submitted applications (according to Flastaff's fine list) are going to be accepted.

Are you planning on running two tables? In my experience, running a single table with that many players would be complete chaos.

That might be a good idea, though I'm not sure - can I just make a seperate thread and attach it or should I make a whole new campaign (within the context of the forums, obviously they would be a part of two different parts of the same campaign)?

OK, you jackals, you got me. I didn't really want to reject any of the applications anyway.
As of this moment, all who submitted applications (according to Flastaff's fine list) are going to be accepted. in 12 hours, or until 2 more applications are submitted, applications are still open for a maximum of 12 players in this campaign. We will see how character/player retention goes, but this will likely allow for easier party splits, and a bit more flexibility when it comes to posting every day. Tomorrow I will add people to the player list, start up the campaign and discussion threads, and message those that need some tweaking. Hopefully to get started by Friday, cause I am pretty dang excited about it. Let's see how it goes, cause this is all new territory to me now.
I hope you're all pleased with yourselfs, pressuring the DM like that. Now I've gotta make these CRs 3 times higher grumble grumble.

I might consider expanding it a bit, maybe altering the intro quest from my original vision. It looks from what I can see to be about 10 people have applied/have characters they are working on, and I've definitely never run for a group that big, but I've always had an easier time of doing stuff online anyway so it's not out of the question. We'll see about it.

As far as tongues goes, it is something you would automatically be fluent in - it would go along with the vision as sort of the awakening of your oracle powers, I would assume. I'm not sure if there's a way to increase your fly speed - I looked but I couldn't find anything about it. Still, at-will fly is always a strong ability.

I've looked over occult play test before, and I have no problems with it!

Woah, a bunch of new applications! I'm so excited to read everyone's stuff! I'm going to get on it today and tomorrow. I know I missed your question, bob, before you put up your character, but the amount of undead won't be insignificant - they make excellent shock troops, and I just really like em.

As for the skin walker, Cuan, I will allow it as long as they aren't actually NE, but it sounds like you were going for a LE concept anyway, so that's all right.

I don't mind leadership in this campaign, but it's probably the only time I'd really allow it for obvious reasons. As far an Aasamir, I will probably allow it, as long as it has a decent backstory. I feel like any of those bloodlines I could work with, but if I was forced to give an advantage, probably heavens or ancestor because they have clearer ways to contact you (though I could come up with something for battle as well).

As for other characters being posted, they look great so far! I have only been giving them quick once-overs, but I am going to go into them more in-depth over this weekend, though unless I see something really egregious, they're probably looking good if I don't say anything, and I'll let everyone know by wednesday.

Question, Visser. Would I be penalized by choosing Rich Parents or Lesser Noble as a trait? Both offers a boost in starter gold.

No, you can definitely take them! (as long as they fit into your backstory in some way, of course. Like having rich parents.) Unless you meant to ask if you could take them both? I wouldn't see a problem with it, especially as after a couple of levels the rich parents flat gold boost becomes less relevant anyway.