She muses for a while "Perhaps we could fake a letter from his family in Ghastenhall. They ask for him to come home and then we take him in transit. We'll get him alone and he won't be expected back for a while."
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She will start going through the family trees, sketching them out in one of the chambers we have yet to sweep the dust out. "It looks like we have somebody local. Valin Darian. We will need to figure out how to snatch him away. He will be noticed, so anything without an explanation would be bad." She paces as she thinks.
"Mal ain't gonna like this," Grumble said after Elliaria had explained the ritual a bit more. "Think we can find a different Mitran? They gotta be pretty common, yeah?" "We need to perform the ritual. While I appreciate Mal's intent, This is more important at the moment. If we find another Mitran before the ritual, then He can keep this one. If not, he'll need to find another one after." She smiles faintly, "I suspect that eventually we'll have a plethora of Mitrans throwing themselves at our doors, but hopefully we will have performed the ritual first. [b]"Finding the Blood of the Victor is also going to be important. I'd prefer to find somebody besides Havelyn. But the Horn is more important than any one of us." "Perhaps he has a bastard child out there..."
It looks like the 2180 becomes the "Fix a Golem Fund". We have 1180 for the lens and reservoir and can buy everything else. Hmmm... Perhaps Morana or Soro will figure out how to make wands.
Okay, the final totals are: Clyde 9821.08 gp
Elliaria 9326.08 gp
Grumblejack 7728.58 gp
Malleck 16978.58 gp
Mephistopheles 6728.58 gp
Allies 1780.29 gp
Jack Leadership 9489.29 gp Party Treasure 9489.29 gp Rebuilding 18978.58 gp I've put a tab for us to list what we want the city team to buy for us.
"You did save the emerald, which somewhat offsets that you were defeated. As you can se, we are a new force dedicated to rebuilding the horn and using it as a base to wreak unholy vengeance on all that oppose us." She pauses, "All of us are here for a common goal. Prove your worth and you will be rewarded. Failure is not permitted."
Elliaria stares at Halthus, as if looking into his soul.
Elliara, where on the sheet did you put the consumables? Potions and whatnot? On the "party treasure" tab.
It's not the size, it's the weight. 600 lbs of gold items and 2,000 lbs of silver. Plus all of the items. It's about 12 trips using just one bag. With the three handy haversacks in the party, it's still 5 trips. I doubt Raaven can carry that much being tiny. If we just do the gold, then with Aurex and all of the bags, we could do one trip. We can then move the silver when we have a bigger bag or a portable hole. I'll list this with just the gold for now. Elliaria is also airdroppable.
I was counting all of the bags from everybody. If we're only suing yours we'll have less room for gold.
Okay, it looks like everybody is on board with shopping. Last chance to claim items in the loot sheet before it all gets finalized. I'll clear it out tomorrow and list the final split. With the various bags and haversacks, I estimate we can move about 300 lbs, half of the bulk gold items. I've added that into the split. We'll need more capacity to move more in the future. Party bag of holding?
Do we know that the extradimensional space doesn't have an air supply?Let's assume it does to make things easy! An endless soundtrack of cheesy 1980's soft rock? That's diabolic!
I'll go with Tih for the Farholde crew when Elliaria isn't available. I agree with Jack that jumping might be an issue. Perhaps splitting this off to another game? -----
* Make it difficult to escape.
Here's my suggestion: Torture device description: We start out with stocks - harnesses to keep the head and hands locked in position. Height-adjustible so that we can handle prisoners of different sizes. They will be set facing away from the door so that they can't see people coming in, but with enough room that we can stand in front of them to face them. Locks on the side out of reach of their hands. Spellcasters get gags and their fingers bound to keep them from casting. We can blindfold them and plug their ears when needed. There will be a groove so that their bodily waste will collect under their head, so they can smell it. When they've been good, we will adjust it to a height that they can stand comfortably. We can adjust it up or down for punishment. For extra punishment, we have chains for the waist and ankles to suspend them. We can set a brazier underneath to keep things uncomfortably warm. We can have a tank of water to drip on them. The water can be replaced with other fluids when needed. In addition to the maddening effect of the dripping, they can suck water from their gags to stay alive. If we substitute it for broth, it can keep them from completely starving as well. When they have been good enough to get real food, we can hold plates up under their faces. Or a little lower to show them what they get for cooperating. We'll have the usual tools, whips, branding irons, scalpels, needles, clamps, etc.
I've got an example of hand me downs on the notes page, and I've listed the recon gloves. I put it twice, negative for Grumblejack, and positive for whoever takes it in the end. Jack gets compensated, and the total party treasure doesn't change. I've changed it to allies now. I had to bump it up to 0.55 to cover this. I've listed things from above as a default. Change them if you want to do it differently. If we can shift a little skill points, I can add profession: architect and perform: strings. That way we won't need a headband (Elliaria will be going with wisdom or charisma eventually) With the tools she will be +12 architecture (22 with take 10) and +17 perform. We would need to temporarily bump up the rebuilding pool share from half to full, but that and party treasure will cover what we need. With the lyre, we can probably cut it to 1/4 share after this or simply use party treasure. I don't think we need the tool for perform, as the lyre has to be a masterwork instrument to be able to be enchanted. (subject to confirmation) Lyre of building 13,000
"An extradimensional prison would be nice. We still need to keep her from casting, but this should keep her from escaping." She then smiled with a cute little dimple. "And if we decide that she won't be corrupted, it makes for an amazing Oubliette. No water, no food, no fresh air."
I did start stacking the +1 weapons, as they are likely to go to minions. The consumables are on the party treasure page. ----- Elliaria would like the menacing mace. Flanking is a big part of the cake she builds, and this would help. I don't think that there's a big demand for it.
Do we need the eyes to get into either room? If so, I think it's time to move on.
"Let's search the fake vault first," she says brightly, "That way we save the best for last."
Yeah, as somebody who relies on crits and precision damage, I wasn't going to be too much help in this fight. I'd probably end up having to mostly do heal spells. My roll was average, but I've built the character to be a social monster. A little less useful in the dungeocrawl part of this, but it has it's moments.
Elliaria calls out, "Then we are not enemies. We have come here to restore the Horn to greatness. Once more it will be a bastion of unholy might! From here we will cleanse the world of the followers of Mitra and any who stand in our way. Join us and you shall consume so many souls in our crusade."
"Well, if nobody else has any ideas, I'll come up and examine everything very closely." She'll put a rope around her and hand this to grumble. "If I become incapacitated, pull me out." Then she will go up and take 20 on perception.
"Do we have such magic available? If not we may need to do it the old fashioned way." She cocks her head, "I don't think those lyres would help this particular case. They build, btu don't clear. In any case, I do recall that they need a skilled musician. Anybody here with such talent? I'm more about vocals than strings."
"We could offer a discount for clergy." she snickers.
Elliaria examines the mural. "Oh my, this is interesting. I never imagined anybody shaping their horn that way."
I think Malleck is the slow one of the party so it makes sense for him to get it. Anybody else below 30'?
So what did the cleric have?
"Perhaps 'nen' is one of the command words for the throne?" she remarks once the word is translated. Obviously she was going to have to learn abyssal.
"Then lets move on and save this for later." she says, preparing to face new and different challenges.
"I feel the effect here. Rather strong. They did not want people coming up here." She will read off the common inscription and take note of the abyssal runes for people that know them.
Looks like we never got the cleric's loot. (look around oct 28) I've put everything else into the sheet.
Elliaria will approach cautiously.
Elliaria looks around, "Who else is skilled at looking for traps? I'm not, but fear is no longer a threat to me."
Thank you. I tried to make it as easy as possible to handle. People can feel free to copy this for other games.
Okay, here's the loot sheet for review and testing. How does it look? What questions do you have?
Should it be needed, she will go by "Doll".
"It's okay, we know that you are working on that." she says as she pats him on the pauldron.
"I agree."
Okay, I'll Get the spreadsheet up this week. For shares how about: 1 share per person
As to why, I've seen lots of games that died because some people got screwed in the treasure split, and I want to avoid this. If there is no way to keep track and prevent this, it ends up causing problems. I'm not saying that my way is the only way, but I'd like something that recognizes this and has some way to compensate for it in some way. It doesn't need to be elaborate as mine. Another option (#2) would be to keep track of either total wealth or total treasure assigned and whoever's lowest has first right of refusal on each magic item. If they don't want it, then the next lowest gets their chance and so on. If nobody wants it, it gets assigned to the minion pool or sold. This one has the problem that sometimes somebody will take something that another person really wants. But at least that other person has already been benefitting from the treasure. Option #3 keeps track of all magic items assigned since we last split cash money. This is a percent of all magic items assigned. When we split money, they get the opposite percentage of the money. For example, one person gets 80% of the magic items, then they get 20% of the money. This one breaks down if there's more money than items in a particular split, but at least points towards equity. PC's with leadership work in my plan. There is a share or partial share for each person with leadership. They buy appropriate level items for their troops. I've seen what happens with leadership when people don't keep track. A couple PC's get the majority of the items. All of the low level troop items get put aside for their troops. Then money is split. Because zero low level items are sold, the person who only gets few magic items doesn't even get a portion of the money from the minor stuff. In some cases, the followers end up getting more treasure than a PC does. We could go back and account for everything in the past or simply do this working forward. Since treasure values escalate, past issues will eventually be worked out. Yes, it is work. I've volunteered to handle this. It would be on a public spreadsheet. Any option that takes this into account takes some work. What we get out of it is two things. 1) avoiding somebody leaving the game because they are frustrated. 2) ending up with a character who can't pull their weight because they are starved for items.
"Oh, I'm willing to go up and trigger the trap. But if it needs skill to disarm, that's one aspect that I haven't spent time learning. I could check it out and then have Grumble or Clyde follow once we know what's going on."
With a poof of brimstone the party finds itself transported to Hell. They are in strange chairs with a semi-usable desk attached to the arms. Each chair is somehow slightly too small to be comfortable. A devil wearing her hair in a bun appears in a business suit that ensures that HR has her on the naughty list appears before you. On the chalkboard she writes "Infernal Accounting for "There will be an exam on this when your souls are dragged into Hell, so listen carefully. Or not." she has a wicked grin. "This is Hell's preferred system. Feel free to ignore it at your own peril." -----
In the ledger, each permanent item is listed by the value you would get for selling it. Consumables are generally not included, but items deemed unworthy of keeping may be added. Please note that dying with excessive consumables is proof of poor resource management. Extraordinary consumables like the tomes and manuals that advance your abilities are treated like permanent items. Items of general use to the party can be excluded and listed as permanent party treasure. Bags of hefty capacity are often listed here, for example. The sum of the sales prices of found items is added to the total of liquid assets and divided by the number of shares. There is one share per party member. Projects and a fund for party expenses are assigned shares or fractional shares as needed. Each person subtracts the selling value of items that they are keeping from their share. Once again, conflicts are to be decided by the group appropriately. Unclaimed items are sold, and he remaining funds of each share are disbursed. On occasion one party will require more value than their share covers. This is usually because of a valuable item that would sell for more than the value of a share. There are two approved methods to handle this. First would be to debit each other share a proportion of the excess value. In future distributions, the receiver assigns some of their share to paying back the other shareholders until the debt is satisfied. The second option is to remove this from the distribution and maintain it's status as undistributed party loot. In a future distribution, this is added back in and treated normally. ----- I will be willing to do the work on this if people choose this. Yes, it is fussier but it avoids lots of potential problems with looser systems.
Elliaria doesn't care much about her rooms. She would like her own private space, but it doesn't need to be fancy or large.
I wasn't planning on taking leadership, but I would be pretty good at it. We should figure out how much we can spend on resources so that we can figure out what we want to buy. Have we set up a split on how much goes to us getting stronger and how much goes to party expenses? Does this take into account who is getting treasure? (Magic items rarely come out equally across the party)
So we will need to coordinate flying. We need to expect a welcoming party and so should arrive ready to fight. When we are ready to go up of course. We have a dragon who can presumably carry one or two, and our shadowy wizard can cast both fly and spider climb. He can prepare more than one, but obviously the more spells he prepares to get us into the fight, the fewer spells we have once we're there. Because I don't breathe I can come in a bag of hefty capacity, but I'll need somebody to open it on the other side. But I don't like that option. Perhaps adding some scrolls or a wand would help us out. We will presumably also need a way down until we find another way down like the throne or something we missed.
Elliaria is game for the supply run and checking in.
"Because this was once a person. We just need a little stone shaping and stone to flesh and we can see who he was. If he was petrified by a Mitran, it might be somebody we can use."
True, but it's easier than wrangling a bunch of mundane craftsmen. Eventually one would get out and try to raise the alarm.
"Oh, that is the Allerian Knight's motto. 'Mitra shines on everyone, Mitra rules everything.' They do love their dead languages. Hell, many of the noble families go to special services in a language that they don't understand to prove to their neighbors how pious they are. It was delicious to see them give in to their pride in the middle of Mitran services." "Oh, and this is holy ground as well, though not as strong as the previous one." Elliaria will check the nostrils and ears of the statue. A sculptor will only go deep enough that people see it is a hollow. When a person is turned to stone it goes as deep as the original natural orifice.
"Though we would need to determine if there is anything of value in the room before using it to punish people." she says, "Oozes tend to leave all sorts of things that resist their acid."
"That room is hallowed ground. We'll need to deal with that when we get the time." On hearing about oozes, she nods, "I'm acid resistant, so I'm willing to go first. I won't be very effective, as most of my damage is based on finding the weak spots. Does anybody know if these kind can be poked or cut, or is that bad?"
Elliaria smiles, "I suspect that if they are still bound, they'd probably like to come back. And I'm sure that they could be useful against the Mitrans."
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