Feorina the Archpsion's page

"Thank you. It seems like the Treasurer knows where he's going." Feorina hobbles to the Marrow after him.

"Where is this marrow that you speak off?

"I agree, that sounds fine to me. Let's wait with these lightning rails, as I feel they are even more valuable than any efficiency that we could gain from these mines."

I'm good with my role. I think the key thing is that the people running the edicts need to be on top of them, which I supposed is the marshal and explorer for the moment.

*Checking in*

Oh, the market provides magic item slots, so that fits the requirement for the mages guild as well.

Next month I'll be going around for recruitment. Ideally it will pick up a few people, but the idea of the guild is collaboration, not teaching, so ideally they will have some experience already, but probably only looking for only one or two.

I think a mine is a good idea. It only costs 6 BP though, so we might consider building some more farms as well, especially because we have the abundant natural resource bonus.

I would also request the construction of a Herbalists, possibly using that magical shovel, so the magic guild can be founded. Then we can start getting to work on the grounds of the Magical Academy for our noble scroll scholar.

The whole northern US is the same way. Part of the fun. :D

Sorry, I missed your spoiler post, DM. In this timeline, what APs events have occurred? I might be a bit confused. This world that we're in is not any of the published settings, correct?

I will have spent part of my time doing the required diplomat duties, and the rest earning experience. The scribes that were working with me can come with me and I can teach them when I'm walking around and not doing something.

I don't need to sleep, so I will use the 8 hours that I would be sleeping, instead teaching the warforged. And I will use my regular downtime to do the above.

"Perhaps we can use some of this quartz and silver to craft some royal regalia for our prince...the two colors match well together. A simple, yet elegant, crown...a band of silver embedded with the most dazzling blue quartz in the mine. An adequate symbol of our nation, for presentation to the world, I should think."

"Have we considered building a herbalists (building, but the name of the building is just herbalists)? Perhaps as you explore, you should collect samples of plants. We can catalogue them, test them for medicinal properties, and keep some of each type of useful plant growing in the herbalist greenhouse. As a keeper of lore, I would be more than content to oversee the collection."

Well, it's not fiction because it's all true. I imagine it would be very valuable. :p

Off for the holidays

ah i get what Feorina is saying now. She is trying to make (and maybe later sell) stories of our old worlds. People might buy that. Fiction for some, research for others.

Anyway, as far as what Fabricator is doing, he will use 2/3 of his day to assist in the building projects that were decided upon.

Exactly. Alternatively, they could talk to me and ask questions, and then I could then ask them personal questions that we'd like to be answered. But in the past, books were lavish gifts for the royalty and powerful bishops, and they don't cost us huge amounts of money to make (unlike a solid gold statue).

Imagine if an alien civilization came to visit Earth. We'd probably want a set of encyclopedias (or a flashdrive, in modern times) about their world.

For clarification, I meant that I knew things about other worlds that were not this world, that is, ones that were in contact before (I believe that is Golarion and Castrovel, unsure about Eberron) The idea is that I can trade knowledge from my experiences on other worlds for information on this one.

It certainly wouldn't be very fun if I just knew everything about this one. Clearly this world is different from the other worlds in the sense that it requires this magical gate.

Essentially, instead of bringing along a library with tens of thousands of books, I just know all the material. An adequate bargaining chip, I would say. Or, if you want to use the grand doctorates example, just because I may have the equivalent of hundreds of grand doctorates on knowledge from the old world, does not mean that I would automatically know everything about the new one.

-----

I think your main problem with the knowledges is knowing stuff about this new world that we're exploring, but that's not what I was trying to do at all. I am trying to access knowledge from the planes that we've already been on, before we stepped through these portals to this unexplored land. Hopefully that explains what I mean better and resolves this?

I do not claim to know about this new world, but I would also like to not be nerfed on my ability to know about the old one.

I think that is assumed generally in the knowledge check, especially since you are already taking the -20 penalty largely into account (I assume that not getting above 15 is like having not met someone to teach you about it, hence the big penalty).

One thing that I realized was that many times, it's necessary to suspend disbelief. If you think about it, there are people in this game that have long jumps of 50 feet (not aided with magic). It's much like knowledge checks of 35 (-20 penalty makes it 15 or 10).

That might mean that once upon a time, a god knew vaguely of some other world, told his closest follower, that follower might have etched the story in a set of ancient runes, which were decoded by a colleague, which was passed through generations at a historian's guild, before being mentioned as a footnote in a rare book, which I read at some point.

With call to mind, that makes Feorina have a perfect memory, essentially. Much like the analogy with jumping.

If someone has a check of 30 on acrobatics, it's not like they can only jump 30 ft, if they are physically capable of it. Just the fact that they can make the DC 30 check means that they are probably already physically capable (possibly taking penalties for injuries).

Similarly, if someone has a high knowledge check, then it's assumed that they have done the learning already. If you give players books, for example, then you generally assume that they know the knowledge they read, no check required. So the knowledge check is more about if they have learned that tidbit over their long life. Knowledge 35 is like knowing the internet (assuming it can be hit consistently, which in this case, it can be).

----

tl;dr Checks and penalties simulate learning the material already. If it's hard to find someone that knows about the rev war, then it's probably more of an obscure event in your world (which you already took account of by the -20 penalty). And, DC 35 is already well beyond human capacity, so it doesn't make sense to apply many aspects of "common sense" in what humans can possibly do. Based superficially on knowledge checks, Feorina is like an Albert Einstein of every field; it's not that the DCs are too low, but I've invested everything I have into knowledge.

What knowledges are affected by this? I assume it's just history, geography (in the sense of memorizing places, not like understanding rock formations), nobility? (Things tied to knowing facts about stuff that you've never seen)

Like, I can do what I was doing before with the other knowledges?

-----

It would be lovely to read your homebrew rules. It's very difficult to build anything without being able to check the rules in advance. In your example though, where I had rolled a 15 and gotten a 10 on my check. It says in the rules that a 10 would give me knowledge of common events, so I would get the revolutionary war stuff correct?

But see, that's the thing. I assume that the unmodified 15 is only for the first roll, correct? So I roll a:

1d20 ⇒ 16

Actually, that wasn't a problem. But say that I rolled below a 15, and took the -20 penalty. I would still be able to know a large part of the world's history with the penalty (just talking about if the only restriction was the penalty, not anything additional you added), just not the very obscure events. So perhaps know about Franco-Prussian war for instance, but not all of the silly Treaty of Parises.

That is why I am saying that regardless of the unmodified roll, I would still like to be able to use my abilities. I can still hit a 15 with the penalty and know enough for my needs.

--

I would like to know how you plan to rule on knowledge, because I built my entire character around knowledge. -20 penalty makes sense, but if I also can't use call to mind when I need it most, that makes it somewhat difficult.

If the thing is a hidden -20 if I roll below an unmodified 15, then you could go ahead and roll the 15 by itself to check for it, but I would still like to take 20, unless I am actually misunderstanding you and you were saying that there was the unmodified roll AND I couldn't take 20. If that makes any sense.

------

^

Trying to explain, not combative. It's just kinda important for me. In general, I hate rolling things myself, so I build my characters to make sure that I don't need to that often:

Take 10 or 20 as often as available, use SR: No spells with saves (no touch attacks), point-buy, etc.

Those of you that are in town, if you want to go ahead and choose one downtime action to do each week.

F: You did find a few forged ones that were interested in helping you out part time with your task history works. Do still need the d20 roll for the history check. I just need to see how well you know the history. Ill let you take 20 to talk to them.. but far as your understanding of a different worlds history, because its not your native worlds history you just may flat out get it wrong.

I can take 20 on the history roll, and the result was in my previous post (35, for reference). This is from the Call to Mind cantrip.

In general, how common is world traveling? Not just planet traveling, but like, different worlds. I would think that it wouldn't need to be my native world; if there's ever been any information about another world, then I would probably know it.

Could you designate a general update day per week to post our monthly updates, so we can keep track of things? Things wouldn't need to be posted on that day necessarily, but just so that we can move on our schedule and not end up a week behind all the time while waiting for a single post.

---

Avelloron, maybe our combined lobbying powers will get us a magical laboratory that we've been pushing for. :P

So basically every week in real time, we post a month's worth of actions for the game?

Not entirely clear about how time works. :p

Was not sure if I was allowed to take 10, since I'm talking to a bunch of different warforged (since there are like 5000 in the colony), so I included the rolls in a spoiler if I cannot take 10

Diplomacy: (Take 10) + 14 = 24
Knowledge (History)(Let's start with the warforged homeworld, I think that is Eberron): (Take 20) + 2 (Call to Mind) + 13 = 35
Perform (Oratory): (Take 10) + 10 = 20

Ah, okay. Is my new skillage of 35 sufficient? :P

What did you say the Knowledge DC was to figure out the deathless transformation (to get into the PRC)?

Feorina wanders around the colony, searching for warforged that prefer indoor work and are interested in hearing about the history of the world.

Ideally she'll get like 10 that want to work during the day, and 10 that can work during the night, so she can have people in shifts. The idea is that the warforged will be interested by her historical tales, expertly told in story form, as they scribe the tales, which will be put in a new library.

Completed my level-up

"Fabricator, before you go, what is the day and night cycle of the Warforged? Do some prefer to work during the night?"

Danke :D

Feorina looks around for a few warforged that don't like physical labor and would rather help do some scribing, after the meeting as concluded.

Ah, well if you recall the conversation about magical academies, we'd need the magical academy building. So I assumed that a spellcasters guild will require a guild hall, which builds out of a trade shop.

"The most primitive cultures have the wildest of magicks. We should not forget this. In addition, I was referring to the knowledge of our universe: our history, our cosmology, our cultures."

I am not sure how I can respond to this in a non-metagame fashion, but there was a GM ruling that the appropriate type of building needed to be built before certain things could be done.

"Those that fail to achieve mind without body end up dead. Even those that achieve body without mind end up undead."

"The point is moot however. There are clearly enough resources for both a foundry and what I have requested. I will just point out that the nations of this land will have had many hundreds of years to build up their material base, but will have never encountered the knowledge that I proposed we write down. Will the nations that trade with us want the former or the latter?"

Oh, I meant trade shop, as in the thing that upgrades into a guild-hall. I will be researching, making books, and storing them in there though, so it will effectively be a library, even if it doesn't give the bonus of a library.

Would a foundry, one house, and one shop work? When I say shop, I mean like some sort of office/library thing, even though it's not a library persay. I think that the first house in a building phase does not count against the building construction limit.

"While you focus on the body, you neglect the mind."

"My apologies, Bastion, I was merely referring to a parable from my whole planet. Many of the cultural references and aspects of the story would be lost on you, for perhaps you have not experienced the world firsthand. But, to summarize, the moral of the story is that to sell a free member of the community is to trade away the soul and morals of the community itself."

"I hope that clears up some confusion." If she sees that Bastion is satisfied with her explanation, she returns to her previous topic. "Will the magical buildings that myself and the magister have requested be built?"

"I assume that the language of common, shaped as it was into the very core of the universes, will be universally accepted. If not, I am sure that the intellectuals and linguists among them can figure it out. I only need seven or eight scribes, as I can't keep more than four books in my head to dictate at the same time, and naturally we'll want copies."

"Warforged are too valuable to sell."

"Are the warforged precise and excellent scribes, due to their mechanical construction? In addition to the office, I would like a few scribes to help write books, to use as gifts for any civilizations we meet. They are also quite expensive, so they could be made for sale as well."

"Naturally, Verio. Remember that the palace is not for your own comfort, but acts as a symbol for our settlement and soon, our nation. That is something that you need to learn about being a ruler, I think."

"As for me, I built my own home in the wilderness in my younger days, but now I think need a comfy bed. Perhaps a small tower for our magister here which can be expanded into a magical academy, and a small trade shop/library for me, which can be used as a state department and can later be expanded into a spellcaster's guild."

"Speaking of objects of power... Feorina points at her head and at the heads of others in the council. "Knowledge is an important commodity that we hold, that others in this world do not."

"I request the construction of a small building, perhaps only one or two small rooms, to host the meetings of diplomats and fellow knowledge-seekers. We likely lack the resources to construct a grand building, but a small building would be more than ample for an office space and sitting room. It could be attached or close to Verio's palace, for instance."

Fair enough, that is true. It's like the good ol days of the 1700s. Yar!

I did not realize that you doubt the stability of the US economic system or its fiat currency or whatnot. Ideally real-world politics will not intrude in the game, so I will try to avoid bringing up things related to this in the future. :D

I may just be confused what you were thinking of for this type of game. It seemed like the point was doing this exact type of thing, but perhaps it's more about building stuff like the old pioneers. I found it a bit odd, because it seemed like we were rather wealthy, so that threw me off a bit.

The main thing that I am confused about is what needs gold pieces and what needs a certain value of materials. I do not happen to know the immutable laws of magic and most campaigns don't have much of a barrier in converting materials to money, so typically that's not something brought up.

I think the weights solution is probably the easiest. However, to deal with this diplomatic issue, I can deal with this during my trade negotiations. The weights can just be used internally to facilitate the bartering. As for trading with other nations, the issue of weight currency will not be a problem if we do not buy anything of theirs with our weight currency. As long as gold flows into our treasury, then it shouldn't ever be necessary to build a mint. If we ever ally them, I'm sure they wouldn't mind helping us out by using their mint to mint our metals for a small fee on our part.

Which reminds me, how much in materials do we have now?

I would agree, but I am also not a fan of being limited by these types of restrictions, so I am trying to find a way around them. Seems a bit artificial.

Exactly. The only peculiar thing about this system is that gold has an intrinsic value in the manufacture of magical items. What I am basically proposing is that we separate the value of gold as a currency from the value of gold as the raw material for magical item construction, by the construction of these trading certificates ("bills") which are equivalent in our trading system, aside from the use for magical item construction.

Essentially with this plan, we are raking in every real piece of gold through taxation, without directly requiring that people give up their gold. This is because if we taxed gold directly, we'd have to modify rates based on the amount of gold available in the economy (easily gamed by a crafty populace), but if we taxed some sort of free-floating certificate which was related to gold by deposit, then the value of the certificate would fluctuate naturally for us.

The vast majority of the wealth in the settlement is in non-gold related goods, which is not very necessary for our purposes.

Related to that note: does retraining actually require 50 gold pieces or just 50 gold worth of items to trade in to get retrained.

I mean, what you do is print notes that allow the holder to trade in the note for an equal value in gold. So this note is by definition equal to its value in gold, because you can trade it in for gold at any time.

Then you require that taxes to the government must be paid in these notes, thus creating a demand for these notes. You'd monitor supply and demand of these notes and only issue enough notes to keep the trade value of the notes (not the government defined value of the notes) at the government-defined value.

Now that these notes have clear value, they are circulating around in the economy. There are more notes than gold that you have in reserve, because not everyone is going in to redeem their notes at the same time.

The only problem that I'm seeing right now is that we are dependent on meeting another civilization and trading goods for gold, without somehow expecting that they are going to want gold for their own goods.

-------

Alternatively, we can convert metals into coinage without a mint by using weights. Like, this is one pound of pure silver, so it's worth X amount equal to the number of silver coins that would ordinarily be equal in weight to one pound.

This way, we do not need to make a mint. Assuming that we have silver and copper mines already, then we should start using those materials only for magical item construction, and then using our other resources for trade.

So the gold remains in the economy? That is my principal question, basically.

I am not sure how fiat currency is a chaotic act? If it's defined as such and enforced, I think it's rather lawful. Probably there is no need to go as far as free-floating fiat currency, but fractional reserve banking could easily be implemented.

Where does the gold go when we use it to craft magical items? Is it used to purchase components for the magical items, or is it consumed?

I am not sure that's what it means by fiat currency. :o

I mean, I feel that Samantha and Joel are detached enough that they aren't really part of the same party.

Since some of us will be in town (earning xp using downtime rules) and others will be exploring, I think that we should share the exp. Not that it's in my interest (I would be earning more exp if we did individual), but I think it would set a positive precedent that even though we're all doing different things, they are all important to the group as a whole.

"I found it unlikely that we were the only ones in this world. Does the wayfinder tell us anything about the direction from which the explorer came? Perhaps since the wayfinder needs some sort of beacon to understand the lines of magic, we can deduce where it was first manufactured."

Well, I think it's actually 400 xp per day. If you look at the example, a level 3 character earns 800 xp per day, which is the same as a CR 3 encounter (the full value of that encounter).

This only works up until level 5, so that we are even with Bastion. After that we'd need to start questing. Honestly, there's not much that can be done at level 1 with no money.

Right, but the table says that it's 400 exp per day, and downtime rules confirm this.

At level 1 you would earn Cr 1 xp or 25xp a week. doing xp gain a week. which like you said is 10,000 gp.

Where are you getting 25 exp a week, btw?

Well, I mean I am very accustomed to the versatility of arcane spells relative to psionic powers (there are just more), so I didn't want to give up arcane casting.

So what you're saying is that first, I need to use kingdom rules to build the academy building, then use downtime rules to build the organization?