I'll be moving the story along again soon, since it seems we've been derailed a bit.
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Most people misunderstand irony. I think you get it though...
Post, post, post post.....post, post, post, post....it's a post....it's a post....it's a pooooooooooost.
“I, Petros Lorrimor, being of sound mind, do hereby commit to this
“Yet beyond the bequeathing of my personal effects, this document must serve other needs. I have arranged for the reading of this document to be delayed until all principals can be in attendance, for I have more than mere inheritance to apportion. I have two final favors to ask. "To my old friends, I hate to impose upon you all, but there are few others who are capable of appreciating the true significance of what it is I have to ask. As some of you know, I have devoted many of my studies to all manner of evil, that I might know the enemy and inform those better positioned to stand against it. For knowledge of one’s enemy is the surest path to victory over its plans. “And so, over the course of my lifetime, I have seen fit to acquire a significant collection of valuable but dangerous tomes, any one of which in the wrong circumstances could have led to an awkward legal situation. While the majority of these tomes remain safe under lock and key at the Lepidstadt University, I fear that a few I have borrowed remain in a trunk in my Ravengro home. While invaluable for my work in life, in death, I would prefer not to burden my daughter with the darker side of my profession, or worse still, the danger of possessing these tomes herself. As such, I am entrusting my chest of tomes to you, posthumously. I ask that you please deliver the collection to my colleagues at the University of Lepidstadt, who will put them to good use for the betterment of the cause. “Yet before you leave for Lepidstadt, there is the matter of another favor—please delay your journey one month and spend that period of time here in Ravengro to ensure that my daughter is safe and sound. She has no one to count on now that I am gone, and if you would aid her in setting things in order for whatever she desires over the course of this month, you would have my eternal gratitude. From my savings, I have also willed to each of you a sum of one hundred platinum coins. For safekeeping, I have left these funds with Embreth Daramid, one of my most trusted friends in Lepidstadt—she has been instructed to issue this payment upon the safe delivery of the borrowed tomes no sooner than one month after the date of the reading of this will. “I, Petros Lorrimor, hereby sign this will in Ravengro on this
Sly is interrupted by a sharp knock at the door. Kendra, appearing seemingly out of no where answers it quickly. "Ah, Councilman Hearthmount, you're right on time." Hearthmount replies (rather sourly) "I am, as always...now if you please I am eager to get this over with." As Hearthmount takes a seat in a large armchair, you quickly recognize him from the funeral. He is a rotund, many-chinned man. He dabs at the sweat on his brow with an elegant kerchief, which he places back in his rear pocket. No great intuition is necessary to note that he doesn’t completely approve of strangers being involved in local matters, but he keeps his comments to himself, focusing his involvement entirely on the reading of Petros’s will. Eyeing you each suspiciously, he produces a scroll case. He holds it out for everyone to see that the Professor's personal seal is unbroken. He then breaks the wax and opens the scroll case. As he does this, a small but simple key falls out of the tube, clattering noisily onto the table. Undaunted by the key, Vashian begins to read the will.
I've been super busy at work this week. I should be able to get a post up this afternoon.
DM/PC rolls:
Cade Dorthen After suffering through Valeris's disjointed and 'dramatized' speech, the crowd finds Sly's tribute to be somewhat aggresive and overly emotional. Cade is stared at with some measure of distaste as he recounts his more "salacious" remembrances. When it was time for Dorthen to speak, his deliberate and direct, heart-felt eulogy touched the gathered mourners with its sincerity.
Was waiting on Thane, but since that post hasn't happened, I'll be moving it along today.
Trust mechanic: Building Trust (From the campaign book): In “The Haunting of Harrowstone,” the PCs spend quite a bit of time in the town of Ravengro. Unfortunately, as strangers to the town during a particularly bad time, they aren’t initially trusted. Yet as the days roll by, they are faced with numerous opportunities to build upon the town’s trust and, eventually, become well liked by the citizens, earning discounts on purchases, free room and board, or perhaps even greater rewards for their good deeds. Ravengro’s overall trust in the PCs is expressed by a numerical value—a Trust score. This score is shared by the entire party—acts of individual members can affect this total just as surely as acts
The whole procession arrives graveside, and the mood has transitioned from tense back to somber. Father Grimburrow stands over the empty grave, with two disheveled gravediggers alongside. The 6 people carrying the Professor's casket hand him off to the gravediggers, and no complications arise as Lorrimor is lowered into the open grave. Father Grimburrow gives a short sermon, and then invites Kendra to say a few words about her father. Kendra fights back tears and briefly recounts a few of her father's more courageous or selfless meoments and expresses her gratitude to everyone for coming. She then invites anyone else to share a few stories or remembrances.
Konstantin's honeyed words, and measured tone calm the thugs down enough that they sullenly disperse, still shooting venomous glances at the the group and Kendra, but leaving the cemetery nevertheless and allowing the procession to continue.
Computer is updating. I may not get the post up this evening, we'll see.
I was waiting to see if anyone else wantedto do anything, but since it has kind of stalled, I will be making a post tonight to move things along.
Lorrimor Portrait has been changed
lol. So...I'm dumb, and used the same portrait for Professor Lorrimor, as Thane has for his alias. Whoops. I'll see if I can find different appropiate image.
I'll go take care of it. I just didn't share properly before hand.
The wiry man responds grimly, "You folk' don't seem t' unnerstand...We won't have no 'necromancer' buried in the same place as our kin. I suggest you move on out, while you still can. Folk round here 's pretty upset about this right now." The man clears his throat with a snort and spits at the ground, a string of spittle lingering from his lip. He slowly wipes this away with the back of his hand and rubs it off on the stained sleeve of his coat, still glaring at Kendra and each of you. The mob, a group of a dozen men, is armed with a mixture of pitchforks, rakes, hoes, sickles and hammers with some carrying torches. They are obviously hostile, and are casting venomous glances at the procession. Some shout insults along with the leader, "Be-gone you 'puny sheep-brained hag'!" another, "Harpy!" even some more violent," We'll see you in the ground too ya' reeking maggot!"
should be fixed now.
The tallest of the locals, an elderly but wiry looking man, calls out to the procession, "That’s far enough. We been talking, and we don’t want Lorrimor buried in the Restlands. You can take him upriver and bury him there if you want, but he ain’t goin’ in the ground here!"
The grey clouds and constant drizzle lend atmosphere to the dark day as the funeral procession marches on. After several minutes of walking down "The Dreamwake", a loose gravel pathway winding through the cemetary, you are approaching the halfway point when you round a corner onto a seperate path called "The Eversleep". GM Rolls (don't look!):
Sly only: In the distance you see, through the rain, that the way forward is being blocked by a group of about a dozen locals.
Valeris and Sly: You recall from a passage from a book you once read, "Burial Customs of Ustalav" that it is customary to have at least 4 and up to 6 people carrying the deceased on to their next life. Family members lead the processions, but do not bear the deceased themselves. The long walk from the gate to the final resting place is customary for these rituals and signifies the passage from one life to the next.
You understand that it would be bad form to deny Kendra her request, and that this is a very solemn ritual.
You have all gathered in the grey morning at the entrance to the Restlands. As you arrive you see only a handful of villagers, two well dressed men, an aged lady and a rotund man with a boy who looks to be his son. Off to the side is a fine coffin containing the body of your friend, the late Professor Lorrimor, and standing nearby is another woman, in a conservative black dress and grey cloak. Her eyes are red and puffy and her face is as grim as the rest of the scene. This is Kendra Lorrimor, the Professor's daughter.
Ustalav is kind of a Transylvanian/Eastern europe proxy.
Cade, a question: dressed in scale armor and a sworm suit what is a sworm suit?
There is no defined order outside of combat. If you ask a direct question to another character, you'll typically wait for an answer. Feel free to respond organically. If necessary, recap posts will serve to make sure everyone is on the same page. Edit: Also, I'm fine with jpg contributions as I also think they can add some detail to what each person is communicating, or how they view the world. I don't know of a way to submit a pic in the thread, unless you host on another site and link to it that way. That is normally what you will see for people's character portraits.
Gameplay thread is now open.
It is the year 4711, and today is the day of your dear friend Professor Lorrimor's funeral. The town of Ravengro is quiet, as is typical in this gloomy region. Dark, heavy, rain clouds have settled over the town and a moderate but constant drizzle has been falling all morning. The ground here looks as though it hasn't seen the sun in a week! The grass is heavily trodden, and the ground soaked. The muddy lanes that pass for roads, are littered with deep puddles. You have just arrived in Ravengro after a long journey. You know you are to meet near the entrance to the burial field known as the restlands.
Well done. Since you're the first to arrive, 300 bonus experience! lol.
Feel free to ask any questions regarding character creation guidelines in this thread. Let's try and have some real flavor to the characters for this PbP.
Recruitment is closed. This is a private game. Thanks!
Geriatric's group will check in, and submit characters here.
@ Tormsskull: I concede that point. You shouldn't always say yes. My stance (which I didn't dictate clearly) was more that, when you something should be possible, try and find a way to make it possible. Preferably with die rolls. Oftentimes, in my experience, skills are underutilized. Try and find ways to incorporate them when improvising.
Adding on to Democratus, when you say yes, and.... find a way to tie it to a roll. Be clear, that something may be very difficult, but when you are open to things like this, you can get very cinematic events. Which game would you rather play? Player: "Can I jump from the balcony I'm on, to the Chandelier?"
or Player: "Can I jump from the balcony I'm on, to the Chandelier?"
Player: "I *acrobaticize* at a 12"
That's a Dirty and only slightly effective example. But it makes the scene much more cinematic, and the group will likely be telling the story of the time he attacked a chandelier and lost.
My boss has been sitting over in my section this week at work. Thus, I haven't been able to log on at all. I am going to start taking my laptop with me for lunch, and posting at that point on all my PbP's so look for the tempo to change.
Giles, upon further examination of the lock, you can see that it is broken. It's clasp melted by acid, and then put back into place so that to casual observation the lock appears intact. Giles:
You are able to further deduce that Professor Lorrimor most likely used a few vials of acid to disable this lock several weeks ago, and then arranged it upon his exit to look as though it had never been broken.
Within the crypt, a steep flight of cracked stone steps leads down into the cold, damp earth to a large crypt lined with empty niches, curiously no dead are interred here. Giles:
You can recall reading in church records that this crypt was one of the first filled in Ravengro's early days. No one has been into this chamber for several decades, save Professor Lorrimor.
The three of you depart the Lorrimor household, and head towards the Restlands. Going off of the notes in the late Professor's journal you seek out the False Crypt at the intersection of the eversleep, and the black path. As you enter the Restlands, night has set around you, and a dense fog settles just above the ground, the air is thick with an almost unatural quiet. The ground is still swollen and wet from the earlier rain, and the only thing that disturbs the gloomy silence is the sucking slurp from your boots as each step pulls them from the mud. The moon hangs high in the sky, but looks distant and grey, even the stars(of which you can see many) seem dull here. Eventually, after meandering through the fog, and somehow managing to avoid stepping on any graves, you approach what you believe to be the false crypt indicated in the Professor's journal. The crypt itself is a freestanding granite mausoleum, the roof of which is decorated with a pair of leering gargoyle statues. A single stone door with a rusty looking lock sits in the mausoleum’s south facade.
Giles, it's currently around 5:30 - 6:30 or so in the early evening.
Sr Giles:
The Whispering Way is a sinister organization of necromancers that has been active in the Inner Sea region for thousands of years. Agents of the Whispering Way often seek alliances with undead creatures, or are themselves undead. The Whispering Way’s most notorious member was Tar-Baphon, the Whispering Tyrant, although the
The Whispering Way itself is a series of philosophies that can only be transferred via whispers—the philosophies are never written or spoken of loudly, making the exact goals and nature of the secretive
Exact details on the society are difficult to discern, but chief among the Whispering Way’s goals are discovering formulae for creating liches and engineering the release of the Whispering Tyrant. Agents often travel to remote sites or areas plagued by notorious haunts or undead menaces to perform field research or even to capture unique monsters. Their symbol is a gagged skull, and those who learn too many of the Way’s secrets are often murdered, and their mouths mutilated to prevent their bodies from divulging secrets via speak with dead.
Mignar: The Whispering Way is a sinister organization of necromancers that has been active in the Inner Sea region for thousands of years. Agents of the Whispering Way often seek alliances with undead creatures, or are themselves undead. The Whispering Way’s most notorious member was Tar-Baphon, the Whispering Tyrant, although the society itself has existed much longer than even that mighty necromancer.
As the late Professor's will has mandated, you will be staying in Ravengro for the next month. You can take time to gather information (rumors and such), and there are places for you to research more information on the town and local events as well.
Circled Entries in the Professor’s Journal Ten Years Ago:
You were included in that just as much as he was Dareth!!
lol, I knew you'd take that as a chastising. wuss.
Giles: Unfortunately, I don't have any more information than what has been revealed, consider your roll to have provided that information. As for the locked book, you aren't able to offer any insight on, it does not appear to be a book you have read.
Manual of the Order of the Palatine Eye: The rich purple
On Verified Madness: This jet-black book is a treatise on aberrations and other entities found on Golarion that possess
Serving Your Hunger: This text is a copy of one of
The Umbral Leaves: This lexicon is a translation into
Dareth:
You do not detect the presence of any undead. The key fits the lock perfectly, and within are several old tomes and one relatively new one. The newest tome sits on the top and bears the phrase “Read me now!” scratched into the leather cover. This book is Petros Lorrimor’s journal. The other tomes comprise the books of dangerous lore mentioned in his will—three of these have notes tucked into them indicating that they should be delivered to one Montagnie Crowl, a professor of antiquities at Lepidstadt University. The fourth, Manual of the Order of the Palatine Eye, has a note indicating it should be delivered to Embreth Daramid, a judge at the Lepidstadt Courthouse (although the note asks for this delivery in particular to be handled discreetly, and includes the address of Embreth’s home so that you can deliver it there).
Once the will is read, Councilman Vashian looks to Kendra, who thanks him and dismisses him. Putting on a brave face, Kendra thanks you again for coming, and informs you that she’ll need at least a few weeks to decide if she wants to sell her family home or remain here in Ravengro. In the meantime, as stipulated by the will, she asks each of you to remain as well. She then offers rooms in her spacious house for you, promising free room and board for the month that the will requests you to remain in town, and then excuses herself to go fetch the chest mentioned in the will.
“I, Petros Lorrimor, being of sound mind, do hereby commit to this
“Yet beyond the bequeathing of my personal effects, this document must serve other needs. I have arranged for the reading of this document to be delayed until all principals can be in attendance, for I have more than mere inheritance to apportion. I have two final favors to ask. "To my old friends, I hate to impose upon you all, but there are few others who are capable of appreciating the true significance of what it is I have to ask. As some of you know, I have devoted many of my studies to all manner of evil, that I might know the enemy and inform those better positioned to stand against it. For knowledge of one’s enemy is the surest path to victory over its plans. “And so, over the course of my lifetime, I have seen fit to acquire a significant collection of valuable but dangerous tomes, any one of which in the wrong circumstances could have led to an awkward legal situation. While the majority of these tomes remain safe under lock and key at the Lepidstadt University, I fear that a few I have borrowed remain in a trunk in my Ravengro home. While invaluable for my work in life, in death, I would prefer not to burden my daughter with the darker side of my profession, or worse still, the danger of possessing these tomes herself. As such, I am entrusting my chest of tomes to you, posthumously. I ask that you please deliver the collection to my colleagues at the University of Lepidstadt, who will put them to good use for the betterment of the cause. “Yet before you leave for Lepidstadt, there is the matter of another favor—please delay your journey one month and spend that period of time here in Ravengro to ensure that my daughter is safe and sound. She has no one to count on now that I am gone, and if you would aid her in setting things in order for whatever she desires over the course of this month, you would have my eternal gratitude. From my savings, I have also willed to each of you a sum of one hundred platinum coins. For safekeeping, I have left these funds with Embreth Daramid, one of my most trusted friends in Lepidstadt—she has been instructed to issue this payment upon the safe delivery of the borrowed tomes no sooner than one month after the date of the reading of this will. “I, Petros Lorrimor, hereby sign this will in Ravengro on this
As the two of you exchange pleasantries, and Dareth broods silently in a corner, you hear a sharp knock on the door. Kendra answers the knock, and Councilman Hearthmount stumbles in out of the wet, fumbling with his sodden wool cloak trying to remove the cumbersome covering. "Councilman, you're right on time." declares Kendra. Vashian Hearthmount replies curtly,"Of Course I am. Let's dispense with the pleasantries, and get this overwith." No Sense Motive check is necessary to note that he doesn’t completely approve of strangers being involved in local matters, but he keeps his comments to himself, focusing his involvement entirely on the reading of Petros’s will. Kendra isn’t sure what’s contained in the will, since part of its stipulation was that all of the PCs must be present for its reading. Councilman Vashian produces a scroll case, shows that the professor’s personal seal is unbroken, then breaks the wax and opens the case. As he does, a small iron key falls out of the tube, clattering noisily onto the table. Undaunted by the key, the councilman begins to read,
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