Koldoon's page

I'm okay with criticizing 5e content and will continue to do so. If you take issue with it, I'm sure there are many many 5e fan forums to peruse.

I don't mind you criticizing it. I just mind when your critiques don't hold water and your solution to being countered is to try to chase fans of Pathfinder who have been Paizo fans since there was a Paizo away from their forums because they also like 5e.

I'm allowed to like more than one game.

I'm allowed to like Wizards releases and not buy into the idea that just because WotC management is acting against the interests of the community that the game is bad. It's not.

When I look at Yawning Portal or Ghosts of Saltmarsh, I see both nostalgia for adventures that were touchstones for an era: Sunless Citadel, Lost Shrine of Tamochan, Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh - but also a roadmap for converting adventures from first edition, from second edition, from 3rd edition into 5e. As a game master that's enormously helpful - to see how the developers did it rather than guess based on some conversion rules.

That nostalgia is strong for me, but that roadmap helps me more when I'm doing things like converting Ruins of Azlant to 5e for a game I play with my nephews.

I'm not sure at a time when publishers are trying to draw fans in that the best solution is to tell them to go away. Seems counter productive.

I use a lot of paizo material. I use a lot of 3pp material, monte cook's stuff, kobold press, nord games.

And yes, I own almost every 5e wizards release. And almost every 4e wizards release. And almost every 3e wizards release. During 2e I moved to world of darkness, so my collection falters.

But the almost 5 shelves that takes up is balanced by another 4 of 3pp - FASA, Palladium, Green Ronin, Pelgrane Press, World of Darkness, West End Games, Onyx Path, Magpie Press, Goodman Games.

Being a fan of roleplaying games is not a purity test. Don't try to make it one.

Koldoon wrote:

Using Ghosts of Saltmarsh as a clarion call here seems silly. The Saltmarsh adventures are widely regarded as some of the best ever made. Several of the others were from Dungeon magazines that may be familiar to the fan base here, but many in the larger 5e community had probably never seen. They were well done updates, and one of the best gifts I've ever gotten was the spontaneous gift of the Beadles and Grim Silver box of that adventure from my brother - it was a favorite when we were kids.

Did you look at who was involved in that book? I see F. Wesley Schneider in that developer list. I see Kim Mohan as the lead editor. Those are venerable and respected names in this community - names we trust to love the game.

I don't trust Wizards right now. There's plenty to be critical of. But that book? It was gold.

While I've never run Ghosts of Saltmarsh and can't comment on its quality, the fact that most 1st party content coming out of Wizards of the Coast is just a "Greatest Hits" compilation is pretty valid criticism.

Yes, they're also supporting experimental stuff like Theros (also by F. Wesley Schneider, and I love it), but their bread and butter is mostly slapping a new coat of paint on Ravenloft, Baldur's Gate, or Icewind Dale. Their whole release slate this year was all pure nostalgia ('member Dragonlance? 'member Spelljammer?)

It's analogous to if Paizo put out maybe one new adventure every two years, and then kept re-releasing PF1 modules in PF2 in the interim.

Part of the whole controversy regarding OGL 2.0 is that it's the 3PP creators who've been making a lot of the adventures that have kept 5e going.

"Oceanshieldwolf wrote:

And I’m not sure I like the idea of the power of wallets deciding who is or isn’t a bad actor. Sure, the cancellation pf DnD Beyond subscriptions could be seem as a “wallet-powered” exploit, but similarly I see bank-rolled bad actors are legion. It feels like “let the market decide” all over again. And over and over again,

...

Except that Spelljammer and Dragonlance content has been asked for by their consumers for a long time. Also, you didn't list Radiant Citadel which was very new and very different.

Raynulf wrote:

Just dropping this here.

DND Shorts covered the leaked FAQ response Wizards had apparently planned to release, but didn't.

Just. Wow.

DND Shorts follow up video delves into WotC’s subsequent official statement and breaks it down lie by lie. He makes some very good points about the use of language, like that Wizard’s talk of who “won” is an attempt by them to say this is over (when it really isn’t) and that they listen to us to find out what we like and what “scares” us. The language is equal parts full-cringe, obfuscation, milquetoastery, outright lies, patronising and downright stupid. Definitely a corporate culture implosion.

I can’t say it enough. I was weirded out by 4th Edition, but that was more the system, parts of which I actually really like and find innovative and interesting. I found Pathfinder, which seemed to carry on 3rd edition’s roots. I was weirded out by 5th edition but that was more a sniff of corporate cash grab and a little “eh, I was there during Basic DnD and this is boring”. So I steered well clear as the corporate cash grab and “product” became a rewrapping of old school greats into something godsawful. Seeing Ghosts of Saltmarsh release was a clarion call to me that WotC were willing to take the old and try to repackage them as something new, when they clearly weren’t and needed…an idea they couldn’t seem to generate. DnD Beyond looked totally dodgy from a financial perspective, a move toward something I didn’t like, much as I don’t like Pathfinder’s Nexus partnership.

So I am saying to everyone I know, anyone who will listen. WotC don’t love the game. They don’t care about the heritage. You are a consumer, and that is all. Consume their product at our peril. Don’t buy their books. Don’t watch their movie/T.V tie-ins. Don’t subscribe to their stodge. If folks relent and say “Oh, they have backtracked and are legit...

Using Ghosts of Saltmarsh as a clarion call here seems silly. The Saltmarsh adventures are widely regarded as some of the best ever made. Several of the others were from Dungeon magazines that may be familiar to the fan base here, but many in the larger 5e community had probably never seen. They were well done updates, and one of the best gifts I've ever gotten was the spontaneous gift of the Beadles and Grim Silver box of that adventure from my brother - it was a favorite when we were kids.

Did you look at who was involved in that book? I see F. Wesley Schneider in that developer list. I see Kim Mohan as the lead editor. Those are venerable and respected names in this community - names we trust to love the game.

I don't trust Wizards right now. There's plenty to be critical of. But that book? It was gold.

see wrote:

LoreSeeker wrote:

Even if they walked back all the way and said they considered OGL 1.0a holy writ until the end of time, how could anyone trust their word on that after all they tried to do?

Their word, no.

A slight revision to the OGL (an OGL 1.0b) that adds legally-binding text that declares that authorization is irrevocable, the license offer is irrevocable, the rights granted are irrevocable, and the license can only be terminated for breach, followed by releasing the SRD (3rd), MSRD (d20 Modern), RSRD (3.5), and SRD5 (5th) under this slight revision?

Well, then I don't have to trust their word.

"Walking things back" is accordingly something that requires action.

I liked the point Ryan Dancey made: Wizards could absolutely corner the market and get everyone on their new VTT and under newer and royalty-based license agreements. All they need to do is make a new edition of D&D that is so good that everyone voluntarily stops playing 5th Edition.

But that is hard, and takes a lot of time and money to develop, and they haven't even really started.

But they have dropped $146M on D&D Beyond and hired 350+ programmers to build them a VTT. But no matter how pretty their VTT tools are, if it's all just 5E and their (brand new, likely bug riddled) VTT costs everyone a bunch of money, while a bunch of established VTTs are far cheaper or even free... That isn't going to sound like a safe bet to a shareholder.

So they may walk some things back. They may scrub royalties (dumb idea in the first place). They may remove the insane change/termination notice. They may even promise not leave any historical publications under 1.0a alone (e.g. PF1) and let them continue to be sold without challenge.

But I bet they're going to be gunning for getting 5E off the competing VTT's. I suspect they're going to take their time, hope the internet forgets aaaaaalll about it, and then make their play (if they're smart, with less collateral damage to avoid...

They may very well do that, but they would be biting themselves in the foot. Particularly with Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds, where people are buying their books again on the platforms in order to play. If I spend $500 on books that Wizards overnight decides I can't use, I'm hardly likely to switch to wizard's platform to use their VTT. Players follow game masters usually, because the game masters are the ones "sharing" their collections so people can play.

What I can see wizards doing is prohibiting their books from being "shared" in a game - to force players to buy the books if they want to use the cool classes.

But then I couldn't see them canceling the OGL retroactively last week, so maybe they are arrogant enough to piss even more of their base off.

No one really saw them playing PF1 though. They switched to 5e before Vox Machina started on Geek and Sundry. So there wasn't an audience to complain yet.

Thank you for your feedback. This is not my area of expertise, but by my understanding we would like our PDFs to be more screen reader friendly. If we knew how to correct it without making a separate product, I think we would. One of the reasons we value our relationship with Demiplane and Pathfinder Nexus is that they create another option.

You've got a number of issues here. I did check the most recent pdf that I had immediate access to (the first volume of the first P2 adventure path, as that's when my subscription ended), and there's no accessibility features there at all.

IF you are using InDesign, then it shouldn't be that difficult to integrate accessibility practices as things move forward for new products. InDesign is pretty good really about providing the tools to do that. But you have to use them. This includes adhering to styles and defining header levels, using the articles panel to help define reading and tagging order, making sure all images that are not decorative have alt tags.

Adding it to old products... now that's hard. Accessibility starts at document creation.

But some of your issues are harder. Font choices, consistent background images that impair visibility and contrast issues are certain to be an issue in places.

When you do something fun like include a scrawled note as a sidebar it can sometimes work for screen reader users, but not for low vision users.

Accessibility in pdfs can get really complicated really fast. The good news is that a lot of technology has caught up to make it possible to make those pdfs more accessible. Again, it returns to considering accessibility at document creation and using those tools.

Acrobat does have an automated checker (it's an available tool you have to add to your panel) - and it's not horrible though it can be tricked so humans should check things too.

Your main difficulty is that the learning curve can be very steep.

Ultimately, they either set up these pdfs to be accessible or they didn't. If they didn't those features are miserably difficult to add in to anything remotely complicated after the fact (everything they publish likely qualifies). But the high consistency of trade dress in their publications means that they should be able to consistently apply accessibility features if they are thinking about them at the outset of the publication design and layout, at least if they're using InDesign, which I would expect.

The watermark may be an exception to that though, as it depends on how it is applied - it may be software or an addon that doesn't allow them to specify that it's decorative text.

ANNOUNCEMENT

I’ve been needing to make this announcement for over two weeks, and I just don’t want to do it. As much as this game has sputtered, I really do love it.

But I have to face reality.

When I started this session, I had a very different home and family life, and very different stressors to complicate my abilities to deliver the adventure.

Reluctantly, I have to conclude that the family and work stress—from taking in a teenage family member into our home, to my husband losing his job of eighteen years, to the passing of our dear pug at seventeen and a half (and the health decline that accompanied it)—has resulted in my own health and well-being being compromised.

I have a huge list of tasks in any given day and I used to juggle those with only occasional difficulty. Lately though, this game, as much as I love it, is one of the things that I can’t bring myself to get to. It’s not just a time issue. My social anxiety, usually confined to in person interactions, has escalated to include social media and internet interactions, and so while I might spend hours making tokens for the game and getting the map just right for the impending barroom brawl (which I have), I am currently not capable of taking the step to get that online, to post the interactions, and to be social and role play.

I am no longer meaningfully recovering the energy that allows me to be social and deal with people. That has occasionally happened to me in my life, but never to such a degree that even online interactions, usually the lowest of low stress, were implicated.

I was really impressed with the quality of you all as a group.

Finlogan: You were reliable, and showed sparks of roleplay that made me really excited for this adventure. As a healthy fighter with arcane talent, you were the ideal recruit for the Living God, and I was looking forward to that interplay.

Venssa: You played in character perfectly, coming up with actions that made perfect sense for a gnome and a druid that I was never quite prepared for. It was refreshing and I always looked forward to your understated contributions.

Hansyn: You showed an ability to really play with a character’s background and especially after Rankev returned, I thought we had some really great opportunities. I wish we’d been able to explore those more.

Rankev: You managed to be an instigator and verbose and it was wonderful. I missed you after your departure from the first adventure, and I was looking forward to seeing you here.

Lodric: Man, this was an interesting character, and seeing how Lodric would react to the agents of the Living God, especially as a clerk who wasn’t anxious for bloodshed or fighting? That had me so anxious to see that happen.

You were great players. I wish I could continue. But right now I can’t even guarantee a weekly post, and that’s not fair to any of you.

I am, with reluctance, shutting the game down.

ANNOUNCEMENT

I’ve been needing to make this announcement for over two weeks, and I just don’t want to do it. As much as this game has sputtered, I really do love it.

But I have to face reality.

When I started this session, I had a very different home and family life, and very different stressors to complicate my abilities to deliver the adventure.

Reluctantly, I have to conclude that the family and work stress—from taking in a teenage family member into our home, to my husband losing his job of eighteen years, to the passing of our dear pug at seventeen and a half (and the health decline that accompanied it)—has resulted in my own health and well-being being compromised.

I have a huge list of tasks in any given day and I used to juggle those with only occasional difficulty. Lately though, this game, as much as I love it, is one of the things that I can’t bring myself to get to. It’s not just a time issue. My social anxiety, usually confined to in person interactions, has escalated to include social media and internet interactions, and so while I might spend hours making tokens for the game and getting the map just right for the impending barroom brawl (which I have), I am currently not capable of taking the step to get that online, to post the interactions, and to be social and role play.

I am no longer meaningfully recovering the energy that allows me to be social and deal with people. That has occasionally happened to me in my life, but never to such a degree that even online interactions, usually the lowest of low stress, were implicated.

I was really impressed with the quality of you all as a group.

Finlogan: You were reliable, and showed sparks of roleplay that made me really excited for this adventure. As a healthy fighter with arcane talent, you were the ideal recruit for the Living God, and I was looking forward to that interplay.

Venssa: You played in character perfectly, coming up with actions that made perfect sense for a gnome and a druid that I was never quite prepared for. It was refreshing and I always looked forward to your understated contributions.

Hansyn: You showed an ability to really play with a character’s background and especially after Rankev returned, I thought we had some really great opportunities. I wish we’d been able to explore those more.

Rankev: You managed to be an instigator and verbose and it was wonderful. I missed you after your departure from the first adventure, and I was looking forward to seeing you here.

Lodric: Man, this was an interesting character, and seeing how Lodric would react to the agents of the Living God, especially as a clerk who wasn’t anxious for bloodshed or fighting? That had me so anxious to see that happen.

You were great players. I wish I could continue. But right now I can’t even guarantee a weekly post, and that’s not fair to any of you.

I am, with reluctance, shutting the game down.

Losing a pup is horrifying. Even when she was so clearly telling us it was time. For it to come at a time when I couldn't take off work to deal with it sort of made it a little explosive.

It was time, and that's horrifying and I miss her horribly. But seventeen is a very very very old age for a pug.

My mom suggested we keep an eye out for a rescue from a place where she's rescued from before. In a case of perfect timing, they had a beautiful litter of beagle-mix puppies. We've spent the last two weeks getting the rescue scads of information and our application was accepted, so one of those pups came home to us from Tennessee over the holiday weekend.

---

Game stuff. I think what this needs may be a more forceful push. I'm not going to do anything so forceful that there aren't options, but it will be an overwhelming push... so some of how it turns out may be luck.

I know you aren't thinking this way, but there is a little bit of a clock... there was an elven woman who Kassen adventured with who he purported had the third part of the key. The ghost seemed quite determined that the three pieces being united again was a bad thing.

I'm setting up tokens and a battle map, but this will evolve shortly into a combat encounter. I don't think Rankev is wrong in that those do tend to inject some energy into the game, and I think that's what the game needs.

Puppy permitting, that will go up tonight, but if it doesn't, I do have tomorrow off (I took some time now that Commencement is over to help make sure the pup gets housetrained properly. The fewer accidents early, the better for that). So certainly if it doesn't happen tonight it will tomorrow.

I lost my seventeen year old pug this weekend, and am still out of it. I will try to post by tomorrow.

Broken glasses definitely suck. I'm officially old, I'm getting bifocals, which is the wait - they finally came in today. Getting used to them is a trick though, and I'm getting headaches just putting them on. I'm told that's normal and not to worry unless it lasts more than a week.

My eyesight has been lousy most of my life, but my eye doc read me the riot act. computer glasses. bifocals. I'm spending a month's salary on glasses and being glad the insurance at least covered most of the appointment with the eye doctor.

Lodric: Thanks for the heads up. We'll keep you mostly on autopilot until you get back

I just wanted to post an update. I'm glad to see some activity and I feel bad because I've been now a week without posting. For once this is completely mundane. I broke my glasses Easter weekend and literally cannot read without them. New pair was due in at the end of last week, but hasn't arrived yet. They're saying now Wednesday.

I'm trying to make due with a twenty year old spare pair, which is getting me through work but the headaches are horrible. It's sufficient for distance, but not even close for reading.

I'll be back on and posting very soon.

(Hansyn: The mod expects you to infiltrate by trying to join the church. It wasn't that characters didn't get the possibility, it's that those who did dismissed it immediately as too dangerous - and they're not wrong. It is dangerous. You're working on an alternate plan. It's okay.)

Hold in there a couple more days so I have my glasses and can read more than two sentences without getting a spliting headache.

Sorry I missed posting last night. I broke my glasses and my backup pair is only good for distance, not reading.

Sadly the opticians were all closed for Easter, so I couldn't even go to LensCrafters.

Catching up now.

I see that Rankev posted this morning. It's Easter, and I have commitments early in the day, but will post this evening to try to help with the regrouping.

I can't assume that this is what you all want, as it's a major choice for the party with potentially some significant downsides... someone needs to make the decision and act.

I'm sorry., I just...this game has so much potential, but has had so many hiccups that I'm willing to try anything to build up som momentum again.

An overly-complicated plan about setting up ambushes and then stealthing in a complex so that we can...what? I don't even know what we'd be hoping to find, or what we'd then do with it once we found it.

Combat is always good for the life of a game. I'd rather TPK than see this game end because no one can think of a post. (We're actually in a decent position, tactical-wise. We're all together and in one group.)

Somebody say something in game or talk me out of this.

It's not what you're "supposed" to do. But you're off script. I was about to post about you regrouping at the inn, but that's based on what you were last about to do.

I'll hold off to give you time to make a decision.

Just checking...Lodric is with the group here, right?

Yes.

As I said, it's okay. You're going off script a bit, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I'm sorry to have been a little absent this week. I work in public relations at a college and we had an incident implode that had us at all hands on deck.

Thankfully news cycles are short.

====

This is dragging because frankly I couldn't post for almost a week, and you're deciding to go off the script of what the adventure expects, while I'm trying to point to the hints of what's expected.

You haven't gotten it. And that's okay.

Going off script is fine.

It's going to make this more complicated, but that can be the spice of adventure.

I'm heading into the thread to respond to everyone. Now that I have some clarity on where you thought this was headed, I can maybe steer things a bit better.

thanks for letting me know, Fin!

I'm not able to post tonight, but will update the gameplay thread in the morning.

Sweet!

(Um, that doesn't leave us a bit short in the "someone needs to stand in the front and get beaten" department?)

It leaves Fin as the only "tank", but in combat, Venssa usually also goes into melee. Hansyn also has combat as part of his skill set.

Remember also that Cole preferred ranged combat when he could, firing arrows as often as entering melee.

Does this create a more fraught and thoughtful combat situation for spell-reliant? Probably.

Rankev will love it.

Excellent! This brings us back to five players and means the party has all the crucial roles adventures are built around.

Now that I know who is back, I'll build a reintroductory post to bring the game back into place. I expect that will post sometime tomorrow evening Eastern time.

Thanks for bearing with me during the hard time and I look forward to getting this game running again!

So, in good news some folks have been answering messages (and posting here).

I'm still waiting for a few responses. Here's what we have so far:

Aldelenna: out (left paizo boards entirely)
Rankev: in
Finlogan: in
Lodric: in
Cole: out (has already replaced the game in his roster)
Hansyn: ? - waiting on response
Venssa: ? - waiting on response

I will send additional messages to the remaining two folks today, but it is a weekend, and a number of our players had struggles posting on weekends... I don't want to count them out after my own long absence because they might be on a family trip or some other such over a weekend.

That said, I think three players having interest in the game continuing is enough to safely say the game is salvageable. If we can't get Venssa and/or Hansyn to return, we can turn to Rankev's reserves for an additional player, or reopen the discussion thread.

The structure of the adventure would let us start the game back up without having to actually wait for that new player to join, because there are several logical spots to have that new player join in coming up pretty much immediately.

Rankev -

I've sent messages to everyone else remaining except Aldelenna, who already posted about bowing out of the Paizo forums entirely.

For the party not to have a major deficiency we need, in addition to you:

At least one of: (fighter/melee role)

Cole or Finlogan

At least one of: (healing and supplemental spell casting)

Venssa or Lodric

And importantly:

Hansyn (rogue stuff + supplemental casting)

An NPC might be able to patch one of those three roles fairly well, or two with some deficiencies. For now we just have to wait to see if folks are willing to take a chance on the game again.

Okay, so that's a disappearance I'd rather not repeat.

I have a chronic medical condition. One that has been, for the most part, under control until recently. This flare up hit pretty seriously and while, looking back, there were signs, I didn't catch them early enough to do the proactive thing and call a temporary hiatus.

That left you all in the lurch. I'm so sorry!

It's with a lot of sadness that I'm returning to find that we've certainly lost Aldelenna as a player.

If folks are interested in continuing, I am trying to pull the pieces of my life back together, and that includes bringing this game back on track.

As long as enough players are interested in continuing, I will start this up again with posts this weekend, with the anticipation of returning to a daily (or nearly so) posting schedule.

Let me know in this thread, so I can work in appropriate fates for characters who don't wish to continue.

Again, I'm so sorry. My condition is magnified by stress, and between a family job loss and additional live-in family members, and two part time jobs on top of my full-time day job, there's been quite a lot of that.

No hard feelings if folks aren't comfortable continuing. I'm just trying to assess whether the game is salvageable for any who do.

You are investigating the defilement of the tomb at Kassen. There's suspicion (based, admittedly, on the ravings of a ghost) that someone was trying to assemble a key of some sort, of which amulets worn by Kassen and his erstwhile foe were a part.

According to the ghost the key was extraordinarily dangerous.

There's a fair amount of evidence that the priests of Razmir were involved or even behind the theft, and that the mission to steal the keys originated here.

have a good trip!

So would it be too hard to write Lodric back in? Would it be preferable for me to make a new character?

Lodric has remained with the party but has been preoccupied with the voices in his head. I was going to have him waylaid to be found by the party later if you decided to rejoin us, but they hadn't gotten to the appropriate place yet, so you're still there and welcome to chime in whenever you wish.

Just as a note, we have a major snowstorm coming this weekend. I fully expect to be home and posting, but it's snow and ice, which means power outages are likely, so if you don't see anything, don't panic, it's probably just the weather being unkind to me.

Welcome back Rankev!

My plan to quietly be at home for the holidays got sorta shot to the nine hells. Not so fun.

But congrats to you Lodric. I think if we can get this moving we'll be able to finish this leg of the journey before October-ish.

I'm going to push a bit more this year to keep us going. I let that go, and that's on me.

So, upwards and onwards.... it's a new year.

For many in the US and abroad the next week is filled with holidays... obviously post if you can, don't worry if you can't. I will still be updating as I am home for the duration and blissfully spared the usual family gatherings.

Lodric: Let me know and I'll write in a prompt for you. If we don't hear anything, I'll write something that'll allow for an absence.

We're just getting restarted. I had an exit strategy that would allow you to rejoin later if you resurfaced, but you're welcome to chime in now.

excellent. I've made a first post in the game play thread ... there are spoilery things for everyone.

I'll try to see what's going on with Lodric, but I have an exit strategy that would allow him to be re-introduced later if he doesn't re-emerge. So, forward we go!

Okay. So that was a bit of a false re-start, but I'm going to try again. If you're still up for the game, please indicate so here.

I won't even get into the craziness going on here at home, but I'm going to get this thing restarted if it kills me.

I want to apologize for disappearing over September. I several different family emergencies all hit at about the same time, resulting in, among other things, us entertaining a new resident at home.

It's been more than a little crazy, and not helped by my husband being injured and me being ill for most of it.

In my life the only thing that I could set aside to make life feasible was the internet... all of it except work. So that's what went.

Now that I'm on the mend, I'm trying to pull everything back together. I know I said that after the access kerfluffle at the beginning of September, just before all the craziness hit, but I hope folks are willing to continue.

I'll catch up on messages (it doesn't look like there's many) tomorrow and post something leading forward by Thursday of this week.

thanks!

Ok, everyone -

Boards appear to be back up. I'm sorry about the brief absence since they came back; I was in England visiting my dad when they finally went workable and the internet there wasn't reliable enough to post (figures that their technology would start to work at exactly the time mine stopped!)

Now that I'm back and have no scheduled vacations in the near future, I'm hopeful we can return to regular posting schedules.

Breaks can be good.

Now for some excitement.... the Molthuni are closing in!

thanks for letting us know Cole

Learning magic is for losers.

Just sell your soul to an extraplaner being whose name you can’t pronounce and who tells you to burn things from time to time. It’s SO much easier.

His older brother Zandre did that. I suspect that's made Hansyn wary of the practice. Of course, Zandre made his bargain with something a bit... darker.

I have returned! My apologies for the continued absence.

Could the last campaign be marked as complete so it leaves my active campaign tab?

This is done

Ok Koldoon, Hansyn would certainly not be afraid of steeling Turik’s spellbook, but I don’t want to shoot the character in the foot either. As long as there is a path for him to learn spells, that is most important. It may mean that he return’s to Kassen to a very angry wizard, it may just be he buys his own spellbook and teaches himself how to cast spells.

If he steals it, do you want rolls or just describe it?

You can just describe it. Turik is young and naive, if very smart. Importantly, his inability to recognize things like the possible theft of his spellbook marked him as not ready to the town elders, which is part of why he wasn't chosen.

Let me know what you want to do. I'll hold off on the Silvers post until I hear.

Also, my apologies, my schedule was SUPPOSED to return to sanity. But some layoffs and short staffing at work have resulted in strange and unpredicatable piles of work at inopportune times.

In a sense it's good, since Grumbaki was also gone. I'm hoping he's back and able to post soon.

Easiest way is probably a brief role play meeting with Fin and Holgast after the meeting. You're right there.

I'm fine with that if that's what you want to do.

As for Fin's question on loot. except for a few items deliberately distributed to individuals, you were having Rankev hold the treasure.

I will check on what the amounts came to. All special treasure I think was already distributed, but I'll come up with a list of what I don't think made it onto character sheets and post it here.

Greycastle: Sorry about that!

Grumbaki (Lodric) will be out until this weekend. Sorry for the confusion!

Aldelenna: It's okay. We have a few absences that are slowing things, but that's okay, it's just getting started.

We will now continue the adventure in Masks of the Living God

Please post new discussion posts in the discussion forum for that adventure.

Also as a note, please remember that Greycastle (Lodric) is going to only be sporadically available to post until the 23rd. Bear this in mind if you have a roleplay post that involves him directly.

See you in the new thread!