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Good Morrow All!

I am posting to let you all know that effective immediately I have made the decision to leave the Paizo boards entirely. I'm exiting all three games that I was active in, so it's nothing personal to you all. I had a great deal of fun playing this game with you all. I wish you all great gaming. If you have the desire to keep in touch you can reach me on Discord (@Lukeinfehgamuhz#6868).

Your friend,
MendedWall/Aldelenna


Well my friends. I have made my final decision. I am leaving the Paizo boards. Lately coming here feels like a chore rather than entertainment, and that is not why I play this game. So, effective immediately, I am closing this game, and will most likely not be checking back into the Paizo Boards at all. I had a great deal of fun with you all. If you want to stay in touch, you can find me on Discord (@Lukeinfehgamuhz#6868). Thanks for the fun, and great gaming to you all!

Your friend,
Mended


Speaking of clearly marked exits... It looks like, in game, we're just waiting for Quint to acquiesce and play the part of a would be joiner, with all of his comrades as secret backup arriving at The Floating Kraken separately. :)


Psalm Nackle wrote:
Can we assume I prepped Invisibility and Pass w/o trace.

Yes, let's assume that. ;) :)


I hear you all loud and clear. I guess, I've had trouble empathizing though, because I've never been one that had trouble operating in a completely open world. More often than not in games I've played, I've felt stifled by the railroad tracks and limited options. I never wanted to do that in this game. Perhaps, though, a trolley with frequent stops... I will do my best to be a bit more clear and directive in the where I think the PCs should be focused. Also, depending on how the dice go with the plan you all are about to embark on, this game might go from, "I don't know what to do," to "We've got too many things to do, which one do we pick." I'm sure we can get there. This is a good crew, some of the best I've ever played with. Let's gird up and charge forward. We'll get there. I know we will. Thank you all for your continued efforts. I do greatly appreciate them.

As Hack continues to back me, I'll put in another plug for moving the game to Discord. It is, by my estimation, a far superior platform. I've just started a PbP game on there that also is taking place in Eafphqu and it has been going very well. If we don't move over there, that's fine, just wanted to offer it again.

Thanks all!
Mended


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Psalm Nackle wrote:
Psalm thinks a long moment. "Maybe we should use what we know against them. They have considered you as an asset Quint and have taken notes of your skills. Let's play to what they know. A gnome good at infiltration got wind of things going down and wants a seat at the table. Meet him, show him the goods; the amulet and the stone. Pitch it like a job interview. The sending stone and the non-detect amulet prove you have the skills to be of service and you figure there is the opportunity for advancement. If it works you go to the meeting and we follow. If he spooks we spring on him and Hack gets to beat it out of him." He sighs, "He plays at the Kracken, we can make our ways there separate and be ready for the meet. If it goes well we can follow you, if not we take him down and learn what we need."

THAT! Is a fabulous idea. I love it, because it plays to all the characters' strengths. Quint might not be ready to place himself on that "big stage," but he most definitely has the skills to do it. You didn't hear this from me, but I'd definitely go with that plan; it'll probably work... :) That, my friends, is how you build a castle in the sandbox. ;)


Seems to me like this game has lost all of its momentum. As I said on Discord, it seems like it might just be time to call it a ball, and go our separate ways. If that's the case, I thank you all for your time and efforts in giving this game a go. I wish you all good gaming! In a couple days I'll post some kind of summary post about the group of you taking Jun's wagon pulled by old nags and heading out into the land to look for greener and safer pastures. :)


Yes, I will confer most heartily. Stormstrider will not use your email for anything untoward or nefarious. :)


Stormster, I think I got the battle grid back close to what it was... at least from my memory of what was revealed... Sounds like we might have some voyeuristic gremlins or an enemy from somewhere... (0),(0)

I think you have my email... If you need it again, let me know and I'll send it PM style. :)


That was my assumption as well. Seeing as the secret society meeting is tonight, and it's midday now, I assumed you'd all meet back up at Thjorvar's Pegasus and hatch a plan as to how to get information from a man who is known as a master of deception. Likewise, how to get information out of him without putting huge targets on yourselves, or giving away what, exactly you're doing... ??? ;)


@Luna, yes, that is what it means. I would miss your game it's been very fun, but this game is the only one I'm DMing here any more, and besides yours, I'm only in one other game and it drags so slowly that they wouldn't miss my character. So, yes, if I leave the Paizo boards, I plan on leaving them all together, and probably deleting my account.


Bellaluna 'Luna' Liaqirelle wrote:

By the way Mended, I did see your post in ... ? What the name of the other site again? - About possibly abandoning Paizo for this game, & using only the other site. That is fine by me if you want to. I still have not taken the time to learn about that site at all, but I can do it if it comes to that.

At the same time, in all honesty I have been considering possibly dropping this game due to time constraints primarily. RL and the game I run, and just things in general, I seem to be struggling for time lately.

Discord is the other site. I appreciate your honesty and I'll follow it up with some of my own. I'm about two shakes of a lambs tail from just walking away from the Paizo boards altogether. I've got two different games going on Discord, and they are easier, more fun, and have way more active participation. I don't want to drop this game. I like playing with all of you, and you all are at the brink of some major world events in Eafphqu. Plus you are the only team of players who currently have characters at the epicenter of that. I'll be weighing it over the next week or so, and see where we're at.


Psalm Nackle wrote:

Just wanted to confirm. Drow look like sterotypical drow.

If so Avariel at the araments store is likely a half-drow.

There's a lot more going on here than the surface layer of your questions. For starters, besides yourself Psalm, among this party anyway, nobody has ever SEEN a drow. Remember that the existence of a subterranean race of elves is, to the masses, nothing but rumor and myth, tales told to frighten children into staying close to home at night. So nobody KNOWS what drow look like. Is having red eyes strange for a half-elf, yeah, for sure. Having dark-skin might be uncommon for a half-elf, but it's not rare.

One of the problems I always had with Faerun was the fact that in many situations it was completely white-washed. If dark-skinned humans exist, dark-skinned half-elves would, by necessity of probabilities of procreation, also exist. That is very much the case in Eafphqu. Dark-skinned half-elves exist. The assumption of everyone (except maybe you all at this point, and a select few others) would be that they have a plainsman or plainswoman as one of their parents, and that's where their dark skin came from. So to say "Drow look like stereotypical drow," makes way too many assumptions of the character's knowledge and the setting's races. The short answer is, "yes, drow look like stereotypical drow." The long answer, though has to take into account that Psalm only caught a glimpse of a few drow in conversation with some d'rak (orcs) in a dark cave one night. He doesn't know what stereotypical drow look like.

Also, @everyone: at no point did I think your characters would blindly go around the city asking everyone they are acquainted with if they'd heard the name Zutir. I know you are all embroiled in a delicate investigation. I would assume your characters would act accordingly. In my head, Quint would start with his street rats. That network of, by now well paid, orphans no doubt has a pretty solid collective knowledge of many of the who's who of Rydwyrna. Nikeisha has friends in low places as well. Luna has some members of the Order of the Open Fist that she could trust to be secretive. And, as Hack already posted, he's got some acquaintances that would possibly care less who he's asking about, or why. I never expected you to paint a sandwich board with the words, "Do you know Zutir!?" on both sides and wander around the city ringing a bell.

I get the analysis paralysis, that was why I suggested taking the path of least resistance. You have friends, some of whom you can trust to be discreet, and others who may not have any care at all about who you ask about.

Last point. @Hack, I'm going to ignore the "next" in your post, because it is still the morning, and the meeting that you all are trying to get to is "tonight" in game. So I'll assume Hack left the table with Akassa and went right to his boss and pit-fighter comrades to ask about Zutir. Speaking of which...


This might sound a bit condescending, but sometimes I think you all are trying too hard and you end up missing the obvious solution(s). I've found, throughout my own history of RP games, that many times it's easiest to think about what you would do if you were in any given situation. In a situation like this, I'd, quite literally, start asking around. You all know people all over the city. Start asking them if they know a man named Zutir, and if so, what they know about him. For something like that, you wouldn't even have to roll, because I, the DM, know if your contacts know Zutir or not. All you would have to post is something like: "Luna goes throughout the city talking to all the people that she trusts, asking them if they know a man named Zutir, and if they do know the name, what do they know about him."

Seriously, stop making things more complicated than they have to be.


Luna, everyone else has joined the Discord server. If you get a chance today, would you mind joining? I know it won't work from work computers, you've said that, and I anticipated it, but it does work from computers and phones rather well. As Quint suggested earlier, it might be possible to "hybrid" this game between Discord and the boards, where some interactions and combat could be done on the Discord, and then narrated at length here. In fact, the more I think about that, the more I really like the idea, because it allows us to go back and read through everything and craft the narrative around the action. Anyway, if you don't mind, please take some time away from Elder Scrolls ;P and join the Discord? Thanks!


Quint Rue wrote:
Btw, some of us must have gotten a good look at the downed Kraiulans at the Shepherds' compound. I don't recall the question being asked, but somebody must have noticed what race they were. Were they also all elves of some ilk, or...?

Nope, all the bodies were humans.


Stormstrider wrote:
** spoiler omitted **

Just a suggestion, take or leave as you will. You could wait until your shift ends, start your car, then go back in and sit and wait in a warm room in your place of business while it warms up. I realize that means you'll be staying at work after hours and not getting paid. It also, of course, means you'll get home 10-15 minutes later than you normally would, but you also won't lose your job, and you'll have the added benefit of driving home in a nice warm vehicle. Having lived in the Midwest my entire life, I've found that adjusting to the weather properly is more about planning and forethought than anything else. :) Just my 2cp.


Psalm Nackle wrote:
I am getting an Invite Invalid message.

When you use This invite?

If that's the case, try this one.

The bottom link will expire in a day, the top one is supposed to not expire. I tried the top link and it worked for me, but then again, I created the server so...

If neither of those work I do have the ability to just generate a completely new link url. Hopefully one of those works though.

Thanks for making the effort everyone. I really do think, if you give Discord a shot, you'll like it. Maybe not for this game, but perhaps, if not, it will open up the avenue to other games.


Not sure why, but sure enough when I went in to get the invite url, it had changed. Sorry about that. Hopefully this one works?! It might be because I deleted the #general channel this morning to make the channels a bit more "PbP user friendly." :) Let me know if that doesn't work. :) If it does, I'll just see you on Discord sometime. :)


Shenkt "Hack" Corchran wrote:
Everyone should head over and play with it. If this old dog can figure it out and consider it, then anyone can. It is actually easier and less clunky than Paizo, especially for mobile use.

I agree. It's actually much more user friendly, and the learning curve for rolling dice and formatting text is very minimal. I'd appreciate it very much if everyone at least joined the server and gave it a week of playing around before deciding for sure one way or the other. I've been using it for live games for a while now, but I know it could easily work very well for a play by post type game as well, except better, because when multiple people from the group are on, they could live chat in the out of character channel, and that will make a more cohesive group, not just a loose gathering of individuals working, sort of, toward the same goal, they think. :)

Here's the link again, for those that haven't joined yet. Thanks!

Also, don't let playing on Discord prevent you from responding to Akassa in Gameplay. She's got a bombshell to drop and is waiting to have it coaxed out of her, but you didn't hear that from me. :P


@Everyone, great to hear that people are still interested, even if a bit disconnected from their character in terms of being able to RP in certain situations.

@Quint, you bring up extremely salient points, and no I don't mean points like Thieve's Cant. :P This medium for an RP heavy, extended narrative game is absolutely not the best. I was hoping having Senator Akassa show up would actually provide one of those "lower stake" quick back and forth moments where players with time and energy could post quick snippets and get things moving forward more rapidly.

Speaking of... You'll remember I recently offered up the possibility of moving our game to a different site, but after our connected research we all determined that wasn't the greatest idea. There is another alternative to play online in a quite different, but no less inviting "play by post," venue. How many of you are familiar with the software application Discord? It is a software application that can be downloaded onto a computer'd desktop, or just run right out of any modern web browser. Last year I started hosting/DMing a live game on Discord once a week, and have found it to be a particularly excellent tool for playing D&D online. The only learning curve for people who are regular PbPers would be learning new codes for text formatting. As I said, though, I've been on Discord for a while and would be perfectly happy to help players with making the adjustment. The benefit of Discord is that unless people chose to ghost themselves, we would all know who was on when, and if quick back and forth RP's were necessary, we could do that. This also provides the great opportunity for me to RP back and forth with whomever is on whenever we're both on. In our current "I'm going here, you're going there" circumstances, that could be absolutely invaluable. I could even create separate chat rooms within the same single server for each character and any interactions they had separate from other characters could be taken care of in those "rooms." That benefit alone, for me, makes Discord a much more appealing medium for this kind of game.

As such, as I offered earlier, if people want to give Discord a look see, as an experiment to see if perhaps it is a better fit for our game, I'd appreciate it. I do realize that for some people the ability to use Discord at work would not be an option, and that could be the deciding factor. However, Discord does work on phones quite well, from what I hear. I personally don't use it there, as I like to have my fingers on a full qwerty keyboard when typing, but nonetheless, it is a viable option. As I offered before, if we decided to make the switch to Discord, I would pay every character in the form of a level up.

If you want to give Discord a try, after signing up, you can click on this invite link to go to a server I set up for our testing purposes. There you can play around with functionality. I'll be on Discord all afternoon today as I'll be running my weekly game, so I should be able to help out with questions. Here's the invite link to join the test server. Maybe see you there?


Pulse Check!

How's everybody feeling about the game? Still having fun? Still interested? We're getting danger close to some very interesting (and possibly world-altering) events here. If it feels a little "bleh" now, trust me when I tell you in the next couple of game weeks "bleh" will not be a word that describes what's happening in Rydwyrna... And that's all I'll say about that. :)

However, if people are just not enjoying the game, I do understand that. It's definitely not a hack-n-slash game, and I understand that having given this game the experimental shot, you may have realized you don't like games like this. I'll have no hard feelings if you just tell me that you're not really interested any more. Just let me know. :)

Your friendly neighborhood DM. :)


Stormstrider wrote:

So from what I'm seeing the most of you are saying take the tunnel back to the Spire?!?! Just to be clear, you have no guides, and it is not like when you were coming out going UP, now you would be going down. If you take the wrong path, YOU WILL ALL DIE.

Under-dark creatures of death, evil drow, demons and devils = CERTAIN DEATH.

And there is no taking 10 or 20 on the survival check.

Taking the tunnel - IS THAT YOUR FINAL ANSWER?

So, what I hear you saying is, we should most definitely take the tunnel back down, it's the safest way to go... XD :P

I'd like to phone a friend...
Me: "Friend, should we go back down the tunnel or back the winding way through the levels of the Spire?"
Friend: "Tunnel starts with T, and that is also the word that starts the word trouble, so I'd suggest the winding way.
Me: "Okay, sound logic."

Also me: "Mr. DM, I'd like to change my answer to going back down through the Spire, please and thank you. And that IS my final answer."


Quint! With that investigation roll, and considering you have the urchin background (so you know the city well), you realize, quite quickly actually, after taking a second to look at which buildings the Shepherds had plans for, that their are five buildings in total, and the locations of those buildings outline an almost perfect pentagon, with Castle Redwood at the center. One of the buildings that they have blueprints for is within a rock's throw of the Shepherd's compound that was burned to the ground.

Of course, Quint doesn't know this yet, but I'll tell you the player, the coordinated attack that happened to help with Enwelros' escape from prison, targeted buildings that were very close to those buildings whose blue prints are currently in your grubby mitts. ;)


Well... That's a new wrinkle, but not game-breaking. In fact, it might just be able to be turned into a powerful story hook. Perhaps Jun Valanthe, the unspoken leader of this little rag-tag group, is about to go missing... That will put the heat on the investigation, won't it?!

I think the party is still perfectly viable without Jun at the helm. Though the vacuum left by the absence of his organizational and authoritative voice might cause a bit of interior struggle with the group, that could also be good.

Speaking of the rest of the party. Jun and Hack are the only two who have given me definitive week three investigation primers. There are some posts up from the rest of you that give inclinations about how you want to go about your week three investigations, but, as of yet, no solid "here it is!" posts. Are you waiting for something specific from me? Having trouble putting your ideas into words? Or were those previous posts supposed to be the complete primer for week three? If that's the case, just let me know, and I can do my best to cobble things together. Let me know!

Sorry to see you go Jun! Blessings on your new job duties!


Uriel of Mendev wrote:
I think the tunnel would be a good shortcut and a way to bypass the glade of green portal death...They said one way was down to the monsters, and the other was up to the surface...I expect the prisoners will choose the right way, but I could be wrong.

I'm with Uriel; I think going up through the "shortcut" is the best course of action. I'd offer that we should have all the bound prisoners lead the way as well. That way if we run into anything untoward they will act as a shield of meat between us and whatever it is.

As to the sprockets of green, messing around with something he doesn't fully understand is not one Aldhranhald's favorite activities. Let alone messing around with something that has mysterious magical properties and is surrounded by randomized portals populating without provocation. I do believe Aldy would wait until he's learned more about the spire and its properties before attempting anything like that. I also, personally, as a player, would rather wait on such activities until we've turned over all our prisoners to the authorities at Fort Inevitable, and replaced the Gansu-bot with another character.


Okay, so here's what I see as possible investigation primers for the next week, and I'm only putting these here to make sure that we are all on the same wavelength. I do not want to push things forward without all of your consent here. Obviously things have just become drastically more intense, more ominous, and more dangerous.

For Luna, a trip with Psalm to Skiara's Sketchbook. The purpose of said visit is to scope out the place, and to see why it might be on a "special" list of shops that the cultists have. Perhaps with a "friendly" interview with the shopowner if possible? If so, what, ultimately would you like to come away with from that? Other than just a more thorough knowledge of the business and identity of the owner? Anything specific? Also for Luna, a further investigation into the Order of the Fist Monastery, Byrthelm's conscripted monk fighting force and training compound. Of important note there, her repeated presence there is, by now, noticeable. It's possible she will have to join the monastery to get any more detailed and hidden information...

For Psalm, perhaps accompanied by Nikeisha, research into any elven citizens of the Republic, preferably living in Rydwyrna if at all possible, that might be old enough (at least 1500 years) to have been alive during the legendary Dragon War. Likewise, perhaps, seeing if they can get let into the higher levels of the Arcanium to do some more thorough research into Kraiula and or Aranon Ethalion.

For Jun, look into how Diamond Imports is handling the aftermath of the destructive battle that happened surrounding one of their shipments. Trying to further ingratiate himself into the business wherever possible, and even, again if possible, to get a face to face sit down meeting with either Aldaviel (female half-elf) the owner of Diamond Imports (if she's in town), or her Rydwyrna director Dúnorchel (female half-elf).

For Hack, see if there are any consequences for either himself or any of the other guards that were being paid to protect the shipment that got blown to kingdom come. Keeping an eye out for any possible insight into Brantar Hambuc-ham, and looking for opportunity to find out who his boss(es) are.

For Quint, put his street urchins on watching The Floating Kraken, as well as looking into all of the sites that were attacked during Enwelros' escape, searching for any connections the places might have with each other, with Diamond Imports, or with the cult at large.

Does that sound about right to everyone? Are there avenues I missed? Other areas or people some characters would want to investigate? Whenever you feel like you've got your heads wrapped around what your character would do for this upcoming third week of investigation, go ahead and post that primer in gameplay.

Of very important note for this week's investigations! Aldelday (Monday's equivalent on Iewiuf) is Ilsa 23, the national holiday Freedom Day, the celebration of the end of the Nine Years War with the Highland kingdom five short years ago. Usually there is a massive military parade embellished with magical accompaniment of light shows and illusions, music, and every Senator with their own entourage. I will leave it up to your active imaginations all the possible shenanigans a devious cult might think about pulling off during such an event.


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Shenkt "Hack" Corchran wrote:
Well, that sounds 'bout right. I have a connection with a member...the guy giving me my guard duties. Maybe we could capture him and squeeze him for info?

Now that's the kind of investigation I'd expect from a barbarian, AND, exactly the sort of thing that Akassa was indirectly sanctioning when she said you all could act in ways the Republic of Byrthelm couldn't, at least officially. :) By the way, that's a most excellent piecing together of everything you know so far. Exactly something a "former" merchant would do, organize things... :) Great job Jun! You've earned inspiration. One point of order. There's a difference between a legend and the truth. Which is why it appears to be a contradiction. As example I'll bring forth the name Hercules. Hercules is a legend, there is no possible way everything that was written about him actually happened. Yet, perhaps all the stories about him are based on some truth. Perhaps there really was a very strong and heroic man named Hercules, who did incredible things. See? So, the legend of the Elven War, and of Aranon Ethalion's insurrection and attempt to conquer the known world, are, for all modern day citizens of Iewiuf, very much like the legend of Hercules. People consider them to be outlandishly embellished stories that probably have some basis in truth, but no one knows the actual truth. Make sense?


Is everything okay Stormstrider? You haven't posted anything since Wednesday, and that's outside of the normal for you?


Nope.


Follow up post... Imagine the name Aranon Ethalion as nothing more than the arcane focus through which a secret society of people cast forth their magics to try and alter the universe. The focus is important, his legacy, his ideals, his desire for law and order by force of superior strength, they are the "light," that guides the people that are trying to follow in his footsteps. Aranon himself is long gone (or will be as of my tabletop meeting this weekend). :P Knowing about Aranon Ethalion, for your characters, is only important from the standpoint that the people you are chasing have all attached themselves to his legacy as a way to connect and drive them to greatness akin to the greatness he wanted to achieve, and came very close to achieving. Does that make sense?


Psalm Nackle wrote:
So Aranon Ethalion was the leader of the elves that became the Drow after the Dragon War?

Yes, but your characters don't know that. In fact there are very few characters in Eafphqu that actually do KNOW that for a certainty. It is the prevailing theory among many people, and there are, as I mentioned, some elves that actually lived through that conflict that know it to be true. Which brings me to Hack's question... "would it necessarily require the journey to find some record of that truth?" The answer to that is, "no." However, there are a LOT of qualifiers involved with that, and a lot of game knowledge that, again, very few characters actually have. So while the short answer is "no, that journey isn't required to find that truth." Actually finding that truth without making that journey could prove impossible, and or dangerous beyond what your characters can rightly tackle. Essentially, finding out that truth is the "end game," for your entire investigation, because a lot of the people you are currently investigating are part and parcel of a desire to resurrect not only Aranon Ethalion's ideals of conquest, but literally the mother of dragons herself. My point being, you are all just dipping your toes into an ocean, the bottom of which is well beyond your ability to see, at this point. Make sense?


Psalm Nackle wrote:
"Luna do you know anything of this Aranon Ethalion? Is it something the elves have a view on?"

Oohhhh!!! Great question, and I'll answer it, and then Luna, you can address answering Psalm's question however you see fit. The Elves have purposefully wiped every last scrap of paper knowledge about Aranon Ethalion's insurrection from their record keeping. Their formal histories record the war that took place ONLY as the Dragon War, and mention nothing about the fact that the chromatic dragons were working with a force of Elves bent on the conquest of all the other races. NOW! Because Elves are such a long lived race, there are, no doubt, living elves that know the truth, but they would hold onto that truth as tightly as their own lives, because to admit that elves are as vulnerable and corruptible as the "lesser" races would be a mark of dishonor that they may not ever overcome. Certainly those elves living among the other races would have run into the myth of the Elven insurrection, but most of them would only pass it off as the active imagination of those races that fill their lives with idle fantasy. This leads, of course, to the possible adventure hook of traveling to Alderanyë in the hopes of finding and gaining audience with anyone that is old enough to remember the Dragon War, and somehow coaxing the truth out of them... That adventure could take a month or more, and wouldn't necessarily put the Republic in any better of a situation, but could be fun. :D


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The person who told you about the Fortress of Aranon Ethalion meant that IF you saw people wearing something that looked like his symbol, no matter where you see them, they probably have something to do with his legacy. A legacy, by the way, that is steeped in ancient history and is now more myth than fact. Does that make sense??? If not, let me know. I'll do my best to clarify. I don't want you running around confused about what your characters know! :)


No one openly wears the symbol, but, obviously, you all have seen people wearing them in secret. :) Does that help?


Are we currently experiencing one of those situations where everyone is paralyzed by too many choices? I have a few options to give this campaign a push, but I don't want to do that without giving everyone every opportunity to set up their week 3 investigations.

If you are just unwinding from the holidays and need some time to settle back into normal routines, I totally understand, but I don't want to let too much idle time go by. I've seen campaigns die from little else.

Let me know if you all need a push. :)


Happy New Year to you Stormstrider, and to everyone! I am very glad to be able to have another year to game with such fine people. :D Let's make 2019 even gamier than last year. :P


Happy New Year everyone. I am glad to get another year to game with you all. :D


Stormstrider wrote:
Some mumbo jumbo about real life superseding role playing games...

Are you trying to tell me that real life responsibilities take precedence over hobbies and entertainment!?!? Beyond absurd! I won't allow it. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo ooooooooo!!!

Just kidding.
Obviously.
Happy New Year all. Looking forward to gaming with you all in 2019, whenever real life allows. :)


Right, like I said, magic... :P


Also, just wanted to mention, the very idea of taking a poison dart to an herbalist/alchemist whose shop is named "Heavenly Herbs" and is also uniquely separated on the tabulation sheet of a thieve's guild, and asking the proprietor to help you identify a poison, just sounds like magic waiting to happen. :)

Jun: "I'd like you to identify the properties of the poison on this dart for me."
Proprietor: "Why I never!"
Jun: Smiles and winks, "Rrrriiiiiiiiigggggghhhhhhhtttttt. But seriously..."


Since you didn't give me much on any of those names, other than names, I'd be perfectly fine with you including any number of them as having their own personnel report among the documents. That way you can do some more imagining about who they are, and I'll have a nice concise bit of background and personality for my running NPC database. :) Two birds, one stone, as it were. ;) That also creates new hooks, as any person that the Shepherds were keeping tabs on might be very interested to know it. Just like Quint will be interested to know it, once he finds his own report. :) Possible allies with unique skill sets are always a plus. :D


Bellaluna 'Luna' Liaqirelle wrote:
Yes, but you do have to have magic knowledge to study them. I'll be thinking on it. I would like suggestions from others if they are willing.

Actually, Luna, you're wrong there. In 5e anyone can spend a short rest studying a magic item and identify not only it's properties, but also how to activate it. That was one of the many things I found very welcoming about this current version of D&D. :) In fact, Psalm and Nikeisha didn't have to roll anything to identify them. Their rolls, if they were for anything, were for flavor, or perhaps to see if they could identify them more quickly. I just had Psalm and Nikeisha doing the identifying because I had previously narrated that they were the characters that picked them out of the loot mix.

DMG pg 136 under Identifying Magic Items wrote:
The identify spell is the fastest way to reveal an item's properties. Alternatively, a character can focus on one magic item during a short rest, while being in physical contact with the item. At the end of the rest, the character learns the item's properties, as well as how to use them. Potions are an exception; a little taste is enough to tell the taster what the potion does.

As you can see, not being a magic user or even having arcane knowledge doesn't prevent a character from using or learning about magic items. Potions are even easier. Just give it a taste, and you'll know immediately what it does. :) Gone are the days of waiting for the party caster to make a successful Spellcheck roll to figure out how to use the nice new shiny magic item the players got. :)

Edit: Quint's post popped in while I was previewing mine. Excellent ideas Quint. Those are just the kinds of things I was expecting would come out of this. As I mentioned, there are plenty of hooks, maybe too many hooks at this point! :)


You don't have to be a magic user to use magic items. Or to talk to people, like shop owners. I don't want to push anything yet, as I'm sure some people will have ideas. If, after the New Year's day holiday is over, you're still lacking inspiration, I'll offer some suggestions. :)


Hello all!

I must say, I'm a little disappointed. I thought for sure the list of "participating" businesses, possibly locate-able treasure, along with the inclusion of a sending stone and an amulet of proof against detection and location would get the ingenuity gears turning. Perhaps we're just dealing with holiday lag? If so, I completely understand that, and will wait patiently for whatever genius ideas you all have for using your new found items to get some much needed information from those you've been investigating.

At this point, I'm waiting on you all to move things along in a way that you think your investigations are best served. Essentially, I'm waiting for primers for week 3 investigations, whether those are still individual or more coordinated, is, as always, up to you. :) As far as I know there are more than enough "hooks" out there to latch onto. If you feel that is not the case, let me know. :)


You want to set it off? Like into a glass vial or something? So you can collect the dart and keep the poison intact? I hadn't thought of that, but yeah, that's completely feasible, and, no, doesn't require a roll. :) You can narrate that however you'd like, maybe even using one of the empty potion vials your comrades used during the previous encounter as the receptacle. :)


Okay, well after a bit of playing around, and some quality feedback, it seems that staying here and sticking with the beast we know is a better choice than transferring to a beast we don't. So... Moving on. :)


Luna, you've been added as a player. So go ahead and submit a character, then you'll be able to post in the test thread.


Also wanted to wish everyone Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas to those who celebrate! :) I wish you all a joyous New Year, and look forward to continued gaming with you all in 2019. :D


Merry Christmas (to those who celebrate), Happy Holidays to all!!!

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