Wastrel, is there room for one more? I don't know anything about the system and I haven't been too interested in learning something new, but after reading your description in the Discussion thread I am fascinated.
Search Posts
Gn Sarah, don't forget to mark this game as inactive.
I'm still here.
This game still active?
It's not that Faem is a non-traditionalist looking to upset the apple cart, she's just trying to learn more about why the world is the way it is, and if there is anything she can do about it. She doesn't suffer fools lightly. Working-class grit is her foundation, and she owes no fealty to Man or God. Faem does, however, believe in supernatural evil, and she is driven to seek it out and expose it to the world. The concerns of Woodmen mean little to Faem, except where they coincide with her desire to get to the the root of things.
And now I just realized that Guthrim is Tareth. I should've guessed. There aren't 5 people on all of Paizo that know Middle Earth as well. And now I see that you, GM Sarah, are in Tareth's campaign. Well, don't I feel like an idiot. You know, I GM'd that game for a short while.
And now I just realized that Guthrim is Tareth.
I totally get that. And it's an impossible task for a GM to both manage a successful game and have a life. There's one guy, Tareth, who seems to do it well, and I don't know how he does it. He puts an incredible amount of time into all of his games. You did a good job here getting players that were invested in characters and rp. I apologize for occasionally not rising to the moment with Faem. But that's the reality - sometimes our heads and hearts just aren't in it, and then there's some comfort in letting dicebot do the work. I think, too often, there are players who either spread themselves too thin or are simply not creative writers, and all you ever get from them is a sentence and a roll. That's what drives me nuts as both a player and GM.
I'd be interested to learn your concerns. For me, 5E was a good system to get back into gaming with. I more or less gave up gaming for 30 years and found pathfinder intimidating. Now that I've played pathfinder I prefer that complexity and flexibility.
Cubicle 7's source material puts a lot on the GMs shoulders. It's funny, every GM I've played AiME with has asked the players this same question at some point: What do you want to do? I would ask, Is your heart still in it? If the other game is your muse now, then it's probably better to let this one go. Our characters had adventures and accomplished things. We all had fun. Faem can follow the sunset home with her head held high.
Beginning Wednesday, I'll be traveling for a week. I'll follow on my phone but posts will be limited. Cheers.
Faem continues to shoot wildly. Maybe her bow string is about to break.
Now the company has gained the advantage, but Faem does not have time to inspect the losses among the woodsmen just yet. That judgment will come soon enough.
Faem curses the wasted arrow but takes heart in the fallen troll chief. She pivots and unleashes another volley at the troll attacking Agnar.
The troll chief bellows furiously. It's like trying to kill a building, but it bleeds, so it will also die.
Seeing Guthrim take an awful hit, Faem grits her teeth and aims another arrow at the furious monster.
Faem plods through the rest of the evening in a generally grumpy mood. There's something about this place - this area of the forest, if one could call it a forest and not a graveyard, and a swampy one at that. But more than that, she had learnt that humans were almost as stubborn as hobbits, but lacked the practical sense of hobbits, so that a human would stupidly die defending a piece of barren dirt rather than simply move on. There was literally nothing left for these people in this place. Why fight for it? Beorn could have been a bigger help, blazing a pathway out of this forlorn place that was like a blister on one's toe. But he was a man, afterall, so of course he had his own agenda and could not be dislodged from it for any good reason. Chasing glory, she supposed. The counsel of her companions, seeming wise to human ears, made her turn away, face reddened with angst. When the morning came and the group of hunters set forth, it was with great apprehension that Faem joined them. Leaving the women and children defenseless seemed like another boneheaded thing to do, and she almost insisted on a different course. But the next time anyone from the race of Men listened to her would be the first. It may have been the corruption of the Shadow which blackened her thoughts, but if she hoped that the trolls might kill the warriors so the rest of the village could be convinced of the foolishness of remaining in this awful place, would anyone judge her for it?
Faem is dumbstruck. Outside the walls of the town lay the corpses of so many monstrous creatures - trolls and the like. Slain by the woodsmen of this impoverished hamlet! Yet even such incredible strength falls dead to a mysterious shadow, like a gust of wind scattering fallen leaves. The memory of her brother's slow decay when met with the presence of pure evil, those few years back, fills her heart with despair. She steps back, out of the ward where heroes rot and wait to die. When the group returns she asks quietly, "We g'through. Come wit'us. Leave this wretched place be."
Faem follows one arrow with another, targeting the last spider.
No sooner had the group bid farewell to Beorn and the pile of dead hill trolls than Faem had that tingling up her spine. She heard them before she saw them, all rickety rickets and chittering dread. Then there were the near score of legs and the giant spiders were nearly on top of them. She called out and readied her bow, aimed, and fired, following Lorgan and Guthrim's lead.
I'm sorry you're going through that, WW. I hope you don't have to leave the game. Let's keep communicating, GM Sarah. And Rule of 2 applies to move things forward. Right now we are agreed to continue on to our objective.
I still check this game every day and I'm sad that it has run out of steam. Is this still happening?
Faem drops the big thumb with a thud. "Let's be on w'tit, then."
Faem draws her dagger and approaches a hill troll. A minute later she returns and tosses a troll thumb as big as her forearm to Agnar. "Tha' look like a shadow t'you?"
A lot happened in a very short amount of time. First there was the emergence of the bear who became man, mighty Beorn. A creature so renowned in the Vales that the fables of his powers had penetrated even the bogs of the Gladden Fields, and to the Hobbits therein. And so startled was Faem to meet a character from tales told to children at night that she stood dumbly before him as he went on about hill trolls, and then off he went, as if this small group of adventurers with a single journey's worth of experience could fend for itself just fine. And then there were the dead trolls. Each foot was taller than she, and they lay there, arranged by Beorn or whatever still greater thing it was that killed them, like fallen timbers, as tall as the forest and twice as ugly. Finally, some other prey thwarts the bear-man, such that even his keen senses cannot detect it. By her count, Faem understands there to be at least three foes in the immediate vicinity: more trolls, as Beorn has advised, the thing that killed these trolls, and the thing which the greatest human warrior of the Middle Earth cannot find. "We're outta r'depth," Faem says weakly as she watches Beorn disappear into the dark wood. "We have good information. Let's go back n'report wha t'we found."
Faem takes a break from her morning routine of futzing in the kitchen and then doing some light training, now with two small swords, to heed The Axe' summons. At the call for volunteers, she looks around grimly at her companions, wondering if they are also thinking it unlikely that anyone would reject such a request.
Somehow, the hobbit has heard of Woodsegde; probably picked it up in the past year since she arrived in Rhosgobel.
The journey was long indeed. Circumnavigating half of Mirkwood forest felt like a trip around the whole wide world, and to be done on hobbit legs, no less! But the last stretch of miles along the Great River raised Faem's spirits considerably, and as the company entered Rhosgobel at last, it felt almost as if she had never left. Her reunion with the Axe was brief and to the point. The job was completed, they had traded one companion for another, and gained three mules and a vast store of reedmace in the exchange. Profitable, sure, and the young hobbit was a little wiser to the world than before. She resumed her routine in short order, training, now with two weapons, and spending too much time in the kitchens. Life was good again, but always, in the corner of her mind like an itch that could never been satisfactorily scratched, was the nagging responsibility to her family and the future of her tribe.
Reaching the Anduin Vales is a great relief to Faem, and even the dark tidings of slavery cannot dim her spirits upon seeing the mighty river valley that leads past her homeland. With the long rest, her pace quickens, and there's a spring in her step. She can barely constrain herself from running all the way down the long glad to the rushing water far below.
The weariness of the company shows, but they are still able to provide assistance to the unlucky group. Faem accepts the coin with mild reluctance - how lucky could it be? But offers a grin and a short bow in return. Too bad they did not happen on this group on the way in; having a friend in Lake-Town might have come in handy. The young hobbit cannot imagine ever making this journey again in her lifetime, but who can say... "If'n gobbies b'runnin' 'round, we best b'gettin' going," she says.
Faem decides to put her medicinal talents to use and help Agnar. He seems to have been caught off guard by the sudden intensity of this situation. If Faem had given it any thought she may have felt the same. "This'll help, I'spect," she says while tending to the wounded.
Faem has +3 in Animal Handling and Medicine. She may be better suited in the support role although she does have disadvantage on skill checks. On the other hand, I've had dicebot by the balls lately.
Though her belly knows not hunger in the early stage of the return journey, Faem feels constantly tired. Not enough that she falls behind, more that she is uninspired to converse with the others, sighs frequently, and wrestles to her feet with effort.
The weariness in her bones does not dull her senses as she spots the source of fear in the wilderness. She chases after Guthrim to the sound of the cry for help.
Follow the trials of the day, Faem rests heavily and takes solace in the meal of fish, which is a comfort of home. She assists Lorgan in the preparation and listens intently to his story. It is a great tale, and to imagine such a battle happened within a stones' throw of her family hovel...
Faem will gratefully accept healing.
Cunning Action
Seeing her companions set to work on the reedmace, Faem's heart sinks a little lower as she realizes they could have harvested more but for tired hands. She finds a stand of the prickly herb and tries to not cut off a finger. Total of 3.
I suggested to wait one day. Seems like a risk worth taking, but you're open to prospecting adventures in the future in locations less distant that Lake Town, and that's cool.
Faem shakes her hand and reaches for another arrow. This time the hag in her sights is only ten feet away. She can't miss again, can she?
Seeing Lorgan's plight, Faem pivots and fires an arrow at the evil shrew across the water.
Her hands are wet, and the arrow slips from her fingers and flies wide of the mark.
The hag screams and flails, then falls beneath the surface of the murk. Faem can only hope they dealt a killing blow to it, but in the space vacated, the other witch of the waters cuts her deeply with its claws. The hobbit recoils, seriously wounded. Another swipe like that will send her to a watery grave. As deftly as possible, she disengages from the Marsh Hag and moves to the nearest dry ground near a stand of reedmace.
A spike of terror grips Faem when the Marsh Hags burst from beneath the murky water. She knows this is an especially deadly enemy.
"Don't le'them work t'gether! she shouts as she brings a fury of blades down on the nearest hag.
Indeed, the ruins seem a practical place for a camp but for the crebain which escaped. Surely, it will tell its master about the company of adventures intruding in dark lands. "No sense bein'ere when th'return," agrees Faem. She assumes everyone know at least as much about the birds as she does, and more about the fancy sword Agnar plucked.
Despite that rather hominess of the marsh - a landscape she has navigated since birth - she finds herself mired in muck and too tired for the effort. Camp will have to make itself without her help.
Being the first to discover the cache of blades, Faem has her pick of the ancient weapons. Avoiding the nastiness which obscures the larger items, she plucks a short sword from atop the pile, untouched by grime and sludge. It practically gleams in the darkness. In her small hand it feels light, perfectly balanced, and sized for smaller folk such as herself. She carves the air effortlessly, a smile crossing her face. "This'll d'nicely."
Hearing her companions talk down about the lowly crow in such a fashion, Faem feels embarrassed. "T'ere na s'bad if'n ya boil'm prop'ly," she says in defense of a common meal in the marshlands she calls home. "My Da makes a root stew with'm. Quite tasty!" She sets her mind to investing the ruins with the others.
Faem deftly carves through one of the pesky flying rats and wings the other. Now she brings both blades down onto the last creature.
The bird explodes in a mist of blood and cloud of feathers.
Also, regarding Hide rules, Hide is an action, so I can attempt to hide every round. In this case, I'd first need to disengage or provoke an AOO, so it's not worth the wasted combat turns moving for the limited benefit.
I think combat will go quickly enough. I'm not a purist, but I do believe that if the players get some advantage, then the enemy should get the same advantage. I vote no.
Faem scowls, more at her own lack of effectiveness with her blades than the persistence of the vile crows. She tries again with increased determination.
With no place to go now that the birds are on them, Faem drops her bow and remembers Agnar's skill at fighting with both hands. With her short sword in her right and a dagger in the left, she lunges for the nearest creature of shadow.
|