Merddyn's page

Lucky for you all, you have Florian

1d20 + 5 ⇒ (14) + 5 = 19

You guys really need to work on your perception. XD

Absolutely you can keep going with the lounge scene. I think that's great!

As for being referred to as father, he would probably welcome it. He does seem to have a sense of paternalism towards you all anyway, though he won't be too obvious with it.

So, he wouldn't call you daughter and embrace you or anything like that, but he'd probably seem more pleased and push you harder with more belief in your ability.

Yeah, totally fine. I think it's great having your character be who he is. This is gonna be good.

Recruitment is up. You can check it out here. If you have any thoughts on specific candidates, please send them to me via PM.

The next set of posts will be a little more loose in format. It's essentially a three month training montage. You guys have some time to do some crafting or retraining or whatever, though not the whole three months, because training will take up a lot of your time. Throw out a couple scenes to describe your three months and I'll throw out a few to describe your time with Thorn and Tiadora. The white Ravens are gone by this point, no amount of asking will reveal where they went or why. I'll start working on the posts this weekend. In addition you will all get another trait, assigned by me (to represent Thorn's individual training). I have some idea of what might benefit you, but if you have a specific request for something you'd like to be better at, feel free to let me know.

Finally, durring this time you level up to level three.

Edit: We will definitely miss you, but as a writer myself, I can say more time for your book is a great thing. Good luck and have fun.

Now, while kineticist is psudoarcane, it would seem to me that you may want someone moreso skilled in that way. What do you all think of that? Would you rather try as is? Now is probably the best time to introduce a new character should we choose that route.

Let me look into it. It'll definitely be a craft type thing, but I've got to go over some comparison's before I can give a definitive answer.

Seeing the kid come up with the Sir Reginald, Timeon pulls himself together. "Hey kid. Yeah, I don't know how you all got down here, but we'll get out. Sure."

He looks up slow, taking a deep breath and letting it out. "I don't know where Sir Balin is. I hope he escaped this horrid place. But if there are others we should find them." Timeon glances down at Charmaine, but only for half a moment, like he's afraid of her somehow. "Let's go then," he says standing taller than he had before. His emaciated and dirty form looks strange as he does so, yet there is only a little hesitation you can see. He looks around at all of you and nods, "Not a knight yet little one. But I will be."

1: South Door; 2: West Door: 1d2 ⇒ 1

Timeon steps forward, "I'll get you girls out of here, don't worry. Follow me," he says as he steps to the door you all came through.

XD I did not expect this, but looks like Charmaine's got him ready to play the hero. "Look at these poor lost women in here, looks like I've gotta man up and rescue you all." XD

I could, but I think we've mad e enough noise that we may as well start with a knock.

Sindare steps around the spider and to the door. He knocks loudly and calls out, "Hello! Is anybody home?"

Did we ever find out her name? Or is she just "the witch?"

________

HOLY HELL CON DAMAGE?! So glad that thing went down quickly.

It's worse than even that. Had that thing's plans worked out (meaning, had it gotten a hold of someone before it had been damaged), it would have been hasted. Pop out, hit someone go back into the floor.

Same round. Talia's destruction of the orb changed most everyone's actions, so I just decided to back everything up a bit.

With some Russian folktales there's the magical animal helper (like the Gray Wolf in The Tale of Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird, and the Gray Wolf), and I personally would love that idea. Either that or maybe a magic doll type idea like from Vasilisa the Beautiful.

Anyway, I'm a folklore fanatic, and so yes. Yes I'm very interested.

Grumblejack smiles and helps Charmaine take care of the dog. The dog, having gone through a lot, now seems much friendlier, though also a little scared of the new surroundings. He makes it hard to bathe him, but eventually between Charmaine and Grumblejack, the job get's done. Grumblejack then helps as best he can to make himself presentable, and the effect is quite comic at times. But in the end, he stands tall, proud of his newly found state of semi-hygiene.

All I can think of is this right now. xD

Ha ha. Sorry. That's alright, BTW, it is flat footed now because it hasn't acted.

So, the first one I played in, the horn was blown on us in that same hallway you guys had, but we took off to one of the side doors, and eventually ended up getting cornered in the warden's tower. We had to clear everyone out in order to get through them. That was tough.

The one I ran before this, they spent a whole day just watching the guards movements and how things worked before even starting. By all rights they should have had it easiest, and they did make it through that hallway without the horn being blown, but they were thorough and decided to empty everything out before leaving. They did eventually get caught and also had to have a big fight with the remaining guards.

You guys on the other hand, managed to stay just ahead of almost all attempts to organize after the horn. Had Blackerly managed to delay you as he intended, you were one round from the off duty guards joining the fight, and three from the wizard (already buffed and ready to fight). And as for reappearing . . . Well we'll see won't we. (Muah hahahahaha!).

"If we can bring them back, we will." Sindare bows his head gravely, then steps out behind his new, somewhat oblivious companion. "I knew some people like you back home. They were good, I liked them. I will try to keep you from joining them in the world beyond," he smiles at Unk, as if this was reassuring, then Sindare pulls out a blade, almost like a short sickle, and tests the edge before nodding, satisfied, and putting it back in his belt.

Yeah, I had a Wizard/Rogue/Arcane trickster that insisted he was a cleric. He spent the time after every battle "healing" everyone. And by healing, I mean casting Prestidigitation and cleaning them off. Our actual cleric was often frustrated with him. He eventually proclaimed himself the High Priest of his religion. It also happened to be a religion he created. . . . .

So essentially he was a cult leader.

Forgot to mention, a -2 to pick the locks while manacled, but luckily you still make the DC.

Though it is hard working manacled as Charmaine is, the lock springs open after a few moments. The manacles stay closed until Charmaine pushes them open and she plays with them for a moment, noticing that they would easily stay closed without the lock if someone so desired.

I hope everyone had a happy holiday! Welcome back.

GM, do you want us to post in spoilers if the party splits?

Yes please. Not that I'm concerned about spoilers from the other group (it's fair to assume that for the most part everyone will end up telling the others about what they saw/heard anyway), more so it makes it easier to navigate what is happening and where.

Now, is there anything right off the bat that anyone has issues with that they want to make sure we stay away from in this game? Now is a good time to let us know so that we can simply steer the game away from those topics.

Again, I will offer, if you feel uncomfortable saying it to the group, you can email or PM me and when everyone has posted, I'll add in the things that were sent my way.

I will put two in now. I am not at all comfortable with violence against children. So I will likely not give you any children NPCs to interact with in order to avoid any possible sticky situations there.

Second, I'm not comfortable with rape of any kind. Even off screen. Let's just not. You want your character to get laid off screen, that's fine, just keep it consensual, or don't say anything about it at all.

I know some people may not want to start with this discussion in a game, but I feel especially in this AP, it's an important thing to go over so that everyone can have a fun game.

Well, while we're waiting there's one more thing I'd like to have a discussion about before we're ready to begin, and we can start that and have our last player join in afterwards.

You are all villains, the worst of the worst, really, and what some of you have done is already beyond terrible. But it won't end there. There will probably be some pretty bad things you all get the chance to do in this game. But it needs to be fun villainy. I do not want to be chasing anybody off because something becomes too graphic, or despicable. Remember these are public boards, anyone can come and read what we write here.

Therefore we need to set some quick ground rules. I'm going to start with the first few, but I need to hear from you as well, because this effects everyone.

RULE #1: Keep it mostly PG-13-ish.

This doesn't mean you can't do terrible things. Lot's of terrible things happen in PG-13 movies, but they happen off screen. You can make your intent clear and then just fade to black, or focus on a splash of blood on the wall. Something like that.

Now there will be some descriptions (especially during combat) that may go a little beyond what you'd see in PG-13 movie, because it's not quite the same when it's in writing. That's why I added the "ish." Just try to keep it tasteful.

RULE #2: Respect the other players.

This is particularly in reference to other player's comfort. If anyone says for any reason, "Hey can we skip this part. I'm not comfortable with 'X'" Then it ends there. We skip ahead to something else, or rewind to before it happened and take a different route (depending on the situation) and we respect that. We're all here to have fun, and making other people uncomfortable is not part of that fun. I will not negotiate on this, anyone who gives another player grief or argues about something after another has said it's too far, will immediately be removed from the game.

RULE #3: Speak up if you're uncomfortable with the direction we're going.

I will do my best to keep it all tasteful, and be arbiter, but please speak up if you feel something is going too far. If you don't feel alright saying so in the discussion you are welcome to PM or email me and I can speak up for you.

Edit: Though sign language for more covert communication might not be a bad idea even for our hearing characters. Is that something we can take?

Hmmm . . . Let's see:

I like the idea, and think it would be great to have, but . . .

1. There is nothing official that exists (not a big deal).

2. There were plenty of Thieve's Cants or secret languages in history, but it generally wasn't something you could just learn, it was a guild thing, or something like that.

3. You are kind of creating your own evil organization in a way.

4. I'm a conlanger, and that probably has to do with what I ended up coming up with.

Because of these things, I've decided, yes, this is something you could do, but it doesn't exist yet, so first you would have to create it.

Someone will have to take the lead, but it's the kind of thing people can help with. We'll treat it as if you're crafting, with the Linguistics skill being the requisite skill, DC of 10 for a secret language, with the silver point value of 400. You don't have to spend any money to make it, but you do have to do some time of crafting.

Once it is created you can learn it through the retraining method in Ultimate Campaign (your creation counting as the book that would work) or you can take a rank in linguistics.

TLDR; Yes, but you'll need to make it first.

Also, if everyone could stop making such great villains so that my choices are easy, I'd really appreciate it. XD

GM Taliesin wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **

Question (sorry if this has been answered): You mention in the Campaign tab that we don't start with any equipment. Does that include equipment we would otherwise get from class features, like a wizard's spellbook or a gunslinger's starting gun?

That does include those things. All spellcasters (wizards included) will still get to start with their prepared spells, but animal companions and familiars have been killed, all items confiscated, etc. There will be opportunities within the game to gain these things back, but for now, you have none.

Now, I've finally been able to actually start going over completed submissions, and have a few questions. For some of these, I can see some possible answers, but I would like to hear from you since you will be the one playing your character.

What about the human alt. racial "Dual Talent," which gives them 2 +2s in any at the cost of the bonus feat and Skilled? It's similar enough to the above I figured I should ask.

Yep. This is fine.

You're using the feat tax variant, and we can now move our rolled scores around - are those the only creation changes, or did I miss one?

Nope. Those are the only changes. Updated character creation rules can be found in the campaign tab and I will keep those updated should there be further changes.

Are we allowed to start middle aged or older?

I am alright with it, as long as it's not about making your stats ridiculously min-maxed.

Given how old Yehlara is being an elf, and assuredly her parents being old as well, I assume they participated in the overthrow of the Asmodeus-worshipping nobility? Or was this a more behind the scenes move? Either way thats what I'm assuming how my backstory would actually be functional, and makes Yehlara's turn to darker powers make more sense- she was alive when it was still there, ablit a child and doesnt remember all that much.

Yes, she would have been alive and remembered the situation.

Think my submission can be put in the complete pile.

But...any chance that we could use the feat tax rules?

You are missing something very important, please review OP for completeness.

Feat Tax, I'm not familiar with those rules. Let me take a look and I'll get back to you.

Would it work against my chances of recruitment if I wanted to keep Wocket? The challenge of making something out of that stat line really endeared her to me.

Edit: I guess I mean, is mechanical viability a major qualifier, or is it mostly rp/background that will get someone picked?

I am mostly choosing on rp/background. Any weaknesses can be overcome, and it makes it more interesting to have them and show them. I was just concerned because I could see how it had made some classes completely untenable, and the one thing I don't want is to close off avenues of storytelling.

Are there any prominent named members of the Mitran clergy?

The most prominent is High Cardinal Vitalian of Estyllis, the High Cardinal over all the church. There are various others, but most of them would be prominent locally rather than nationally. If that target is too high a target for your character, feel free to make up a prominent member of the clergy for your hometown.

When you say -

"No alternate heritages."
- do you mean things like the Aasimar tables, or the three oddball versions of Oread? Or, do you mean any alternate racial traits at all?

Good question, Alternate heritages include the things like the Aasimar tables (the ones with things like Angel-blooded, Azata-blooded, etc.) and the oddball versions of Oread. Pretty much, you get the standard version of the race you pick.

Alternate race traits on the other hand are entirely acceptable.

Guilty. You are a lawbreaker – the worst of the worst. Too dangerous to live amongst the good people of Talingarde, they dragged you in chains before a magistrate and condemned you. They sent you to the worst prison in the land and there they forever marked you. They held you down and branded you with a runic F. You are forsaken. You won’t be at Branderscar Prison for long. Branderscar is only a holding pen. In three days – justice comes. In three days – everything ends. What a pity. If only there was a way out of this stinking rat-hole. If only there was a way to escape. If only . . .

No. No one has ever escaped from Branderscar Prison. This is where your story ends.

I am looking to run a Way of the Wicked campaign. Read below if you are interested.