Minuraieth's page

We'll gladly join you for some dining. Thank you for the kind offer. If we are headed in the same direction, perhaps we could travel a ways with you? Free security for a short ways is the least we could offer in exchange for your welcome, meal and perhaps some entertainment? Of course, it is up to our lieutenant to make any decisions! Min smiles at Kelgan and shrugs.
If I start to step on your toes at all, feel free to let me know, Sir.

She'll head into the traveler's camp with the others and keep a wary eye out for anything out of the ordinary while remaining cheerful and friendly with them and their children.

Min, 20 can critical on skills, but have to roll again to confirm for critical success.

Assuming confirmation is the same. 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (18) + 2 = 20

The woman turns around to fully face the caravan with smile on her face which, for once, doesn't show the array of pointed teeth behind her lips. Greetings! We are soldiers from Fenrift Keep! As my companions have said, we are simply investigating some unfortunate caravan raids in the area. You may have heard of them in your travels. Do not be alarmed, we are no bandits out for blood despite our ah...appearances. Min shoots a glare over her shoulder at the others.

Where are you entertainers travelling to? And why have you stopped so early on the road? We were simply suspicious that your wagons might have been a trap for weary travelers. Or such is at least a decent explanation for our behavior. Min grins again at him and offers out a hand. I'm Private Minuraieth. The short one over there is our leader, Lieutenant Cragbelly.

Min pauses in her steps and turns around, looking at her companions with both eyebrows raised. What are you guys doing? You look like bandits! A huge eight foot tall giant with an axe as large as a normal man and you! She points at Algar. Do you really think a fur-covered, ax-twirling man who hasn't showered in at least a week gives the image of someone who wants to talk?

Min throws her hands up in the air and then places them on her hips, turned so she can still keep an eye on the caravan.

Tsk, Valan! Can't you see that they're just travelers? Listen to that noise! Min claps her hands together and looks around happily. We have to travel with them. Who knows, we may get lucky and come across clues to what we're looking for.

With that, she rushes off toward the caravan, dragging her reluctant donkey after her.

If everything seems safe, she'll continue toward the caravan and start hollering. Greetings! What are you waiting at the side of the road for? There are plenty hours yet for travel!

An old soldier friend taught me the basics, is all, Lieutenant. I'll see you at dawn.

Min spends the rest of the day alternating between arguing, berating, and flirting with the quartermaster to get extra supplies for this "special operation." She leaves and comes back several times to attempt new strategies, most bound to fail. At the end of the day, she'll turn in early and have one of the other privates wake her when Kelgan does so that she can rush out and get there at the same time or just before he does.

In the morning, she'll be sitting just outside the entrance to the keep, organizing her bolts and settling the bags on her donkey.
All ready, boys? Finally something exciting around here! Am I right? Hm? If we keep our heads about this is bound to turn out okay. I mean, come on, its just a bunch of smelly gobbies, right? And if my suspicions are correct and its someone else...well, that's fine too! She grins her trademark predatory smirk and heads off at a steady pace.

"One more thing, there's already an agent in the field on this. He's been conscripted and will be joining the military at the rank of Sargent but he's a bit of an oddball. Has good intel though, he'll meet you on the road when you get there." The Major then firmly closes the door, leaving the group to it's own devices.

Anyone can feel free to make a Streetwise check to get a favor out of someone near the mountains.

Well that was vague enough. Sounds like we should head out soon then, no? Its not too late in the day. I don't think this place is that far away.

Min salutes the Major once more and strides out with the rest of her new unit. Once outside, she looks around at them. Lt. Cragbelly, when do you want to head out? I'll stop by the Quartermaster and see what the aviary has to offer for messenger birds. Would you like me to inquire about a wagon while there? I only have a few coins on me, so if we have to purchase our own gear, we'll be at a loss. We may be able to pick up animals and a wagon in one of the towns near the border road though. I think we should probably do that anyway. We'll want to investigate the area for signs of the vanished caravans. We may find signs of which goblin tribes are raiding so heavily or find signs of something else's involvement. Anyone know what other people live in the mountains near that road?

Min traces one finger along the snake tattoo circling her eye and gives Algar an amused smile. No offense taken, of course She looks down at Kalgan an frowns faintly. I'm still not convinced this is the work of goblins. Seven reports seems high of caravan attacks, but disappearing wagons? Since when have they taken the entire caravan? It could be they're being framed for something. Of course, annihilating all of the little buggers is sure to be entertaining. Her eyes narrow and she smiles a predatory grin.

I'm a hunter, Sir. If you need me to hunt something, track it, or scout it, I'm your woman.

The hagspawn winces at the terrible singing giant. Oh my..well you--Oh! She winces again when he slams his head on the ceiling. Urgh..that has to hurt. I've got some skill in first aid and know a few tricks, if you need any help in that department, Kelgan.

Min looks at Valan over her glasses and arches one eyebrow. You'd question the Major's decision-making capability so soon, Valan? My, you are brave. I had thought we were only to investigate these..ah..disappearances and provide some intel. I don't know about you, but I'm dreadfully bored of waiting around the Keep and sniping at the occasional tattooed barbarian or dirt-covered bandit.

She pauses and tilts her head, pushing her glasses back up. A faint frown scrawls across her lips. No offense intended, of course. I meant just er..the Keep's enemies. She nods once to Lt. Cragbelly and to the fur-covered latecomer.

A thin hand slaps into a smart salute when the Major opens the door. After his comments, it slips down to her mouth to hide a smirk. The Major is a mind-reader, after all

She follows the others inside, standing to the side of Bronn and looking over the heads of the others at the Major. Tsk, this room is smaller than I would have expected. Her eyes flick to Kelgan, one darkening and the other paling to a light green.

Lieutenant? Ah, it seems you outrank the rest of us, hmn? Congratulations on the command, Lt. Cragbelly. Min looks down at the Major and nods slightly.

You mentioned that three caravans have disappeared, but there have been seven reports of caravans being attacked by Goblin tribes. Does that mean ten caravans have been attacked? Have all of them been from the same area? What were each of the caravans carrying? Was there any difference between what merchant groups sent the three that disappeared and those that were attacked? Or between the ones that have been attacked and those that haven't? Wa--ah..

Min smiles again, showing full rows of pointed teeth. Sorry, too many questions at once. I guess I'd just like to know what else you could tell us about the caravans, sir.

And message by hawk? Ooh, I wonder if they'll give me a messenger hawk of my own if I ask... Oh and uhm...Sir? If you provide us with a messenger hawk, I'd be happy to keep the Keep informed of our progress.

Min sets her chin on one hand, resting her elbow on a knee. The hunter waits to spring his trap when all the prey are in the proper place She winks at Valan with one eye which seems to have turned darker than the other after opening. I'm sure the Major will bring us in when the stars align properly. Or, you know, when he feels like it. You won't catch me questioning an officer! ...Maybe. Or often. Hrmn.

When the large figure thumps down the corridor to sit on the ground, another sly smile flits over her face.
Well isn't this the peculiar assemblage. I wonder if they simply gathered all the misfits together in one place. Ah well, this ought to be interesting!

Her smile widens slightly, appearing almost predatory and she wriggles one, thin clawed finger at Bronn. Why Hullo there! I think I've heard of you before. There aren't many in the fort taller than I am. Why you look positively ah...effective at this line of work. I'm Minuraie-- ah, just call me Min.

I'm not sure if he has more hair than the dwarf or not...I wonder when the last time ANY of these three has bathed. Tsk. Soldiers.

The hint of a frown crosses her lips only to quickly flit away, replaced by a toothy smile. The Major appears busy at the moment. We were idling away the time as we await for him ourselves. Much better than being cramped in workspaces or slaving away under this sun, I'd say. So, Bronn, are you any more aware of why we've been called here than the rest of this lot? I'm mighty curious..

A note on style: I tend to want to seperate what's known and unknown in a pbp, so posting style generally goes like this.

Descriptive text is standard text in third person limited: Kelgan looks over the waiting room with an annoyed eye.
Speech is bolded and surrounded by quotation marks: "Why is everyone staring?" Wondered Bronn aloud.
Personal thoughts are italicized and usually 1st person: This room smells of sweat. Do none of these men bathe? Min thought.
Telepathic or magical communication is surrounded by pointed brackets: <Relax, I'm talking in your head.> Valen's voice murmered in Algar's brain.

Oh good point, I forgot that not everyone uses the same style. I'll start bolding speech, but other than that I've always followed the same method. Quotations for speech and italics for inner thought. I use inner thought rarely as its..well, its inner thought. If you want an NPC or PC to pick up on what your character is thinking, use physical action instead.

For example, intrigue would be a quirked eyebrow, interest would be an intense stare and a slight tilt of the head, etc.

She lets go of Kelgan's hand and glances to the four and a half foot monster against her leg.

"Isn't it? It took my friend, Jack, forever to configure the bloody thing. I'd hold your breath at a decent job, unless they send us hunting wood elves. I haven't seen anything in at least a month that's worth dedicating the goddess."

Min tilts her head again when the newcomer enters and smiles broadly at him. Her grin reveals a set of perfectly white, pointed teeth.

Well doesn't he look quite ragged enough. I wonder if there's more patches to that bag than the original fabric...

"Hello, Valan! Welcome to the Majordomo's waiting room. Prime real estate, hmn? Ah, well. At least its not scolding hot in here. Do you have any idea what it is the Major wants, or are you as in the dark as us two?
Oh, right, and I'm Minuraieth [min-oor-ay-eth]. But everyone just calls me Min."

"Awfully hot out, innit?" He flashes her a smile of straight, white teeth, hoping she can't tell their true nature. "Want sommat t'drink?"

A well-trimmed claw pushes a pair of black metal frames up her nose. Min arches an eyebrow at the dwarf and glances toward the Major's door. She takes a moment to respond to him, her head tilted slightly in consideration. "At this time of day? Before a meeting? I wouldn't want to give the Major a poor first impression. I apologize, but I must decline as much as I'd love to partake in what I'm sure is fine dwarven liquor of some sort."

She folds her legs and rests the crossbow against the floor, leaning it against her leg. "I wonder if you're here for similar business. Podrick said something about assigning me to a new unit. Any chance you're involved in that and know anything more than I do? Oh, and I'm Min, by the way." Min flashes the dwarf a smile and extends her hand for a handshake.

The day's heat reached even into the storage areas of the keep. Minuraieth's slender form is bent double in the small room, her attention focused on the task before her. An irritated hissing sound writhes over the stone walls. The brightly coloured serpent, no longer than 6 inches, in her hands is spasming with anger. Min's hands hold the creature over a glass bowl wrapped in thin sheep's leather milking the weak venom from it. Everything seems to be going well until the door to the room creaks open behind her. Min jumps at the unexpected sound and the bowl clatters to the table, spilling the few precious drops she had gathered onto the floor while Sarah slithered away and back into the safe confines of her cage.

"You bloody snake, Don't think this means you get out of it so easily. I'll take care of you later!" She turns around, the scowl on her face quickly replaced with a neutral expression when she sees who's behind her.

Min salutes, the rusty looking claws at the end of her fingers making a clack in the near silence of the room. "Sir! Good afternoon."

Min listens to Porick's orders and simply nods, quickly securing the small cage and heading to Vedil's office. The trip isn't too far since the keep isn't too tall and she had been in a closet on the top floor already.

The spindly archer is the first to arrive at the waiting room. It seems that Major Vedil is not yet ready for her, so she takes a seat on a dark wooden bench against the wall. The dark wood mirrors the blackened stone of the keep. Never one to waste too much time idling, Min spends the few free minutes to polish the engravings along her crossbow.

Checking in!

Also, as part of an attempt to learn/experiment with the system pre-game, Min has attempted to distill some poison from the viper she carries about. (DC for distill poison is equal to the poison's save so DC 9] Crit failures expose her to the poison, so if she fails she'll start the game with some minor poison damage >.>

She'll also attempt to concentrate those poison doses into 2 doses. Concentrate poison: You can combine two doses of the same poison to increase their effects. This requires two doses of the poison and 1 minute of work. The frequency of the poison is extended by 50% (from 6 rounds to 9 rounds) and the save increases by +2 (from 9 to 11). You can not re-concentrate concentrated poison. DC is equal to the poison's save. I'd assume this is the reconfigured save so DC 11.

Edit: Looks like 3 successes and 1 failure (a 2! so close to critical failure, phew!). This means only 2 are combined so she has a bolt with a DC 11 venom that lasts 9 rounds and a bolt with DC 9 venom that lasts 6 rounds. Does this look right?

Nice! For convenience, after hp I'd note your wounded thresholds. And until you get used to it, the penalties (and Endurance checks needed to ignore them) are good things to have handy as well:

hp 14
LW (fatigued; -1 to all rolls) = 7 (DC 20 Endurance to ignore)
HW (exhausted; -3 to all rolls) = 3 (DC 25 Endurance to reduce to fatigue; DC 35 Endurance to ignore)

Thanks for providing the DC's/penalties, Kirth. Those are good things to keep easily accessible!

At the moment we don't have a wizard anyway! I plan on Min dipping into either cleric or grabbing 3 levels of battle sorc to pick up an expanded spell list - thus the only reason she has any Cha and its not a dump stat. She'll be grabbing mostly buff/restore type spells though. If she makes attacks in combat it'll be Daunting strikes, venomous strikes or ranged disarms with her crossbow.

Kirth Gersen wrote:

Re: Heroic array

This may be a grognard thing, but in our home game we tend to find that point buys of 15+ give stats that are a lot higher than we like to begin with. Most of us have been through the phase where every PC has like a 35-point buy, and most of us eventually started longing for more down-to-earth stats at start. Heroic array is about where our personal preference sits; if your group differs, feel free to change it. For people who absolutely can't imagine playing a character without a lot of 18s, the Amberite advanced race is probably your best option -- it gives you +2 to all attributes at 1st level, at the cost of making your 1st level an NPC class (warrior is a common choice, for the +1 BAB).

Disparity of stats anecdote
In the home game, TOZ's wife made a rogue character and rolled freakishly high attributes across the board. It was like watching an ideal yahtzee game. We declared on the spot that she was obviously some kind of genetic experiment, that aspect to be developed further as the campaign progressed. In actual play, it hasn't been too unbalancing, because Houstonderek's rogue character was much better optimized. The two adventured side-by-side on several occasions with no obvious friction.

I guess I might be assuming too much about other players. I am definitely an optimizer though, so power level is something I'm always keenly aware of.

I started gaming with Alternity in the year 1999, but almost all my gaming has been 3.X or Pathfinder. Usually of the organized play variety. So I guess to me point buy is like a civil right or something, it's just always been there.

Allow me to try to prove myself wrong. Bronn is capable of killing your typical CR 2 monster with average damage from one swing of his axe, and he will hit such a creature 70% of the time on a charge. Put that next to 1st level human fighter with a greatsword and 17 str from his heroic array. He will hit 60% of the time and will need two swings at average damage. It is a...

Oh I'm definitely in the optimizing boat too. That's why you see me optimizing the heroic array for use in a party with one melee already optimized for damage. Now say, if Bronn starts picking up a ton of the same debuff strikes that Min has, then she'd become less useful. However, atm she could rely on him to take things out quickly while applying "shaken" to harder monsters with a DC 16 save and then provide out of combat scouting/tracking/healing (plan on grabbing some healing spells).

Edit: sorry DC 16, I forgot she didn't go with a green hag mother and instead focused on "scout" traits - darkvision and +2 perception.

Minuraieth wrote:

[Alias for DMRaven]

@Jelani, that is one reason I decided to stick to things that aren't (as of yet) filled in the party: healing/range + status effects. If someone else takes one of those with much better rolled stats, I may step out or just come up with another concept.

** spoiler omitted **

** spoiler omitted **...

Minuraieth you should have 19-1=18x15=270 Gold

I'm almost positive you can't post images here, you have to link to them on another site. However, you can leave a link in your alias' profile.

As for the stats, I mean, some people might enjoy the challenge of a low roll. But honestly if I had rolled low I would not have bothered to learn a significantly altered ruleset, to play a character on the heroic array. I also want stats to be as fair/even as possible, because it can be a fun-ruiner to either be way weaker or way stronger than other party members. Yes, PBP is more about the role-playing but stats definitely do matter.

Oh bollacks, I just finished with figuring out gear too! I was wondering why the numbers were so high. Since most of it was in scroll/potions it shouldn't be hard to remove it.

Edit: Also, normally I'd never play a game that used heroic or rolled stats. I'm a big fan of 15/20 point buys and 4e-style games. However, I'm also a HUGE fan of Kirth's homerule set and am already somewhat familiar with it. He does such a great job of combining "fun" options and making them obtainable to many characters rather than locking away most options behind terrible PrC's, long feat chains, spellcasters only, etc. The remodelling of the Heal and Craft (toxicology) skills alone are fantastic much less the entire remodeling of feats, Wisdom/Charisma usefulness, talents/lore/sutras..etc.

I think its amusing that I adore his houserules and yet have never liked 1e/AD&D/2e/3.5 (much) or rolled stats. Its the dynamic movement in combat, complex character options and ability to pull off concepts that are simply impossible or far too unoptimized for me to ever attempt in 3.5/PF.

@ Ryuko: Kirthfinder has rules for modifying poisons but notes the need for an appropriate facility. Would it be possible to have a sort of -on the go- version of this? Something like an alchemist's kit that you spend a few minutes/hours setting up before getting to work?

Min carries around a caged pet viper for siphoning poison. I figure it'd be a handle animal roll to get a dose of poison from it. What kind of DC would you say it is? Equal to the saving DC of the poison? Also, how many doses would a tiny viper have in them? It looks like small vipers would have 1-3.75 or so mg of venom and seem to be able to be milked every 2 weeks(random unvetted internet sources yay.) Another equally unvetted and random internet source puts the lethal dose for many snake poisons at under 1mg. The highest listed was .14 mg from a rattle snake.
Even going by that and the lowest obtained from a small snake (1 mg) that's a little over 7 doses every 2 weeks..I think that actually makes it (almost) viable to keep a small stock (5-10 bolts) of poisoned bolts around!

[Alias for DMRaven]
@Jelani, that is one reason I decided to stick to things that aren't (as of yet) filled in the party: healing/range + status effects. If someone else takes one of those with much better rolled stats, I may step out or just come up with another concept.

Edit: Is there a way to put an image into a post?