Peregrine Stoup's page

We don't need to give them all the armor, swords, etc. either. That's part of the whole thing -- they say how much they have that they're willing to trade, you estimate the value of that (whether that value is in general or to yourself), then decide what you'll trade for it. 'We can sell two weeks' worth of supplies.' 'Okay, I'll give you four chain shirts and two daggers for that.' 'Five chain shirts.' And that's the haggling part.

Peregrine looks out and away from the dickering, considering travel times and needs. "Get ... two weeks' worth, Bander," she says, somewhat distantly as her mind considers and discards options. "No, three."

Peregrine -- never a great negotiator at the best of times -- keeeps quiet as Bander discovers the Que-kiri and starts bargaining. She helps Maddok unlimber the gear he's carrying, and reveals one of the chain shirts they took off the draconian. Very cognizant of being outnumbered, she doesn't want to show off everything they have.

Peregrine’s lips curve in a small smile. “Not just the gods of Good, I think,” she murmurs.

I guess that 2 days to get to Que-kiri is for us going all the way north around the mountain spur, right? 12 miles/day for trackless overland plains, so camping at that northern point tonight, then heading to either Que-kiri (9 miles, 3/4 day) or Que-shu (18 miles, another day and a half) after that.

Peregrine packed several days worth of food for herself; she knew she was going on the run, and isn't foolish enough to leave home without something to eat. But she isn't surprised that her compatriots can find food; after all, the fields through which they cut are those that feed Solace, and collecting something probably isn't all that hard.

At some point, she winds up walking alongside Slam. "Master Slam, do you have any idea what returning the staff will entail? Just in general, I mean."

I'm only confused as to why y'all are confused.

The 'Wilderness Map' is from the original product, the module 'Dragons of Despair', which is what we are playing. The 'Solace to Pax Tharkas' is not from the same product; it is based directly off it, but is crafted by a professional cartographer, and so looks much, much better, and because of many interviews and the like, has the 'fringes' filled in.

Why is there confusion? What is there to be confused about? Or are you waiting for an official response from EltonJ about the official map (i.e. the Wilderness Map)?

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The woods to the west -- Darken Woods -- has a dire reputation, yeah; it's why Tanis & Co. don't want to go that way, but get pinched between various troops and do so.

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Sounds rough, Mr. Rodarte. Good luck.

"That's a number of miles from now, Master Slam," the Red-Robe mage observes. "Perhaps you might keep that to hand until we get to the Que-kiri road?"

Peregrine moves to flank Bander with Kalisuel, the kender holding the maps and the two 'humans' looking over his shoulder at them. "No, you can't get to Haven from the south," Peri corrects the kender. "We're here -- oh, turn it over, you have it upside-down. Solace is to the east of Crystalmir, not west, and the road to Haven has to go north and west before it can go south. See, the White-Rage River down here, that's the southern route to Haven, by river only."

She looks at the draconians' map, scowling at Nerakan military symbols with which she's unfamiliar, and trying to guess the distances involved. "Master Slam, it's probably ten or so miles to the Que-kiri road, and a couple miles through the gap, with another four or five miles past it to Que-kiri. I can't deny that there could be ambushes and the like, but -- wouldn't that depend on them knowing who we are and that we're coming?" She shrugs and reaches out a hand to wheatfield measure with her thumb as she walks with Bander and Kali. "Heading north around the mountains would be ... five to the north of Crystalmir, two three four ... twelve, maybe fourteen miles? To reach it, I mean, before we can swing around south again, or strike out across the plains."

Well, from the looks of it all those maps are fan-made, are trying to get a more general overview than the Haven-Qualinost-Xak Tsaroth area, and/or are being more stylistic than accurate. Here are three -- the official wilderness map from the module, and two from the Atlas (which, published by TSR, is as about Official as you can get):

Wilderness Map from Dragons of Despair; 1 hex = 1 mile
Crystalmir Lake from the Atlas of the DragonLance World
Solace to Pax Tharkas, pp. 4-5 from the Atlas of the DragonLance World

Going off the Wilderness Map, we're 2 miles to the road bending west (black line along the brown of the mountains) to circle around to Haven; you cannot get to Haven by heading south, unless you go by the river. (You can get a better sense of this via the Solace to Pax Tharkas map.)

It's another 3 miles (total 5) before we'd get to the northern part of Crystalmir Lake.

From there we can head mostly east (4 miles east across the fields, 1 mile southeast through the woods) to get to the Solace-Que-kiri road, and 2 miles on that road would take us through the gap.

Otherwise, we can head 6 miles across the fields and plains to the northernmost spur of the mountains; another mile past that, and then we have our choice of cutting south-east the 9 miles to Que-kiri, or striking out across the plains more-or-less directly for Que-shu, 18 miles from that point.

Or, if we really want, strike straight west and a little north, and try to go north around the Eastwall Mountains (aka the Forsaken Mountains) and try to come down to Xak Tsaroth that way. Without a compass, though, I think we'd be in pretty deep trouble. Strictly OOCly, Peregrine has the magic to change her appearance and have a maybe-to-good chance of getting in and out of Solace to buy one, but that'd probably mean at least a half-day's delay, not to mention the chance of her clothes being recognized.

After a while, Peregrine seems satisfied -- or at least not disturbed -- by how Maddok is managing the load he's carrying, and returns her attention to the travelling group's surroundings. "So with Que-kiri is our destination and Xak Tsaroth beyond, and with these ... hm. I think I remember descriptions of these from before my time at Wayreth -- draconians, they were called. Odd place to find a double handful of them, and specifically looking for such an item." She frowns into the distance for a moment, in thought, but then breaks herself out of it. "Sorry. So with these draconians and the hobgoblins both looking for the staff ... well, the pass to Que-kiri isn't narrow, but it isn't terribly wide, either, and presuming we skirt the worst of the terrain," and here she nods to the tangled overgrowth of the underbrush between the road and Crystalmir Lake, "We'll probably get there by early afternoon at the latest. Any thoughts on getting by? Think we can just fight our way through?"

The entire area around the lake should be well within a couple hours' casual walk of Solace; hell, the woods and mountain to the west of the lake are, as I recall, 'a popular picnic spot', so Kali and Peri are both still on relatively 'home ground' territory -- not as intimately-known as the book characters had it, but we've both been here a good couple of years, so.

Peri's idea is to skirt Crystalmere Lake's northern shore -- which will take us past/through Solace's northern fields -- and get to the road that will take us to Que-kiri. (Here is a clip from the Fonstad atlas.) The distance from where we are to the top of the lake -- giving considerable space for following the road, skirting the shoreline brush, and all that sort of thing -- isn't more than five or six miles, with another five max through the Near Fields and to the gap in the mountains through which runs the road to Que-kiri. All of this is, if not 'home ground' for Kali and Peri, at least generally known after 2-3 years of inhabitation.

BTW, Maddok's roll is +6 (base) + 5 (map) = +11, not +10. ;) We also don't have a compass -- Kail was indicating we had a map.

Kali's nervousness causes Peregrine to give her a look of puzzlement, but the human wizard doesn't say anything about it; everyone has a right to their own nervous tics. She merely nods at the minotaur's directions and follows along.

Peri, meanwhile, has been using the dragon-men's cloaks to bundle pairs of the peculiarly-made mail shirts -- two long slits in the back, clearly to put on around the base of the wings, with leather straps for a squadmate to use to fasten both sides to the center piece -- and then using one of the 'spare' cloaks to hang them from the back of Maddok's harness. She lifts the tail end of the cloak, not-incidentally underneath the minotaur's left arm, and shakes it. "So we get into a fight, you pull on this, it all drops, understand?" She isn't confident the horned one grasps the 'yank and be free', but she's at least somewhat confident that if push came to shove, Na'shok would remind the minotaur -- or maybe just grab the swatch in his jaws and yank it himself.

"Daggers and swords in your bag, Bander?" She retrieves the weapon that Slam had snapped, dropping the tip into its sheath before sliding the hilt end in until the scabbard's rim secures it. "No sense letting good steel go to waste," she explains herself, if anyone looks at her oddly.

Well, the question about taking it WAS for the party. The question for the GM was whether or not there was armor, and if so what kind of armor there was. And total amount of gp/stl, 240 being the minimum of '30 per pouch'.

Peregrine's eyebrows lift at the relatively casual way in which Slam cracks the blade apart, then fends the dragon-man off with his shield before burying his weapon inside the creature -- causing it to solidify, of course. Her lips twist to the side in thoughtful consideration of the creature's statue, then shakes her head as Slam gives his direction. "What about all this?" she says, waving at the veritable fortune in assorted weapons and armor now laying in the road. "Seems a lot to carry, especially since we have to avoid the nearest town -- Solace -- but it also seems a waste ..."

Loot: 7 'chopping' swords (tulwar/scimitar, 4 lbs and 15gp each), 8 'wicked' daggers (probably sawtoothed, 1 lb and at least 2gp each), 8 money pouches (each at least 30gp/steel, for a minimum of 240gp/stl) ... 8 armor (??). 36 lbs, plus the armor, if we want to bind it up and take it with us.

When draconians die, they all transform in some way, typically in a manner that will incommode those that killed it -- explode, melt into acid, turn into stone that can trap a slashing or piercing weapon; the baaz do the latter. There IS a chance to snatch your weapon out before they turn to stone, though -- Reflex Save DC vs (10 + baaz's HD + baaz's Con modifier). Considering Bander's +10 reflex save, and I'd give the weapon's magical bonus as an additional bonus to the save, I'd predict he'll manage it more times than not.

Or use bludgeoning weapons. ;)

But all baaz turn to stone for 1d4 minutes when they die.

Peri's eyebrows lift as Slam turns the object of such concern over to a kender, bemusement clear in her expression as her gaze shifts back to his confrontation with the dragon-man. Her expression tightens as he insults the Queen of Darkness -- while the gods may be disparate in their intentions, outlooks, and worshipers, they are all necessary for the world's existence and balance. Insulting one ... may well be an insult to them all.

But she doesn't say anything, merely remains ready to drop her wand of magic missile into her hand and snap a shot out at a fleeing, flying dragon-man.

More like, sign of the end times -- a kender is trusted with a serious task. ;)

Peregrine lift her hands in token of surrender in response to Slam’s statement. “Challenge made, big guy. Maddok, let the dragonman go.“ She watches the developments with a certain coldness in her eyes: long-term care of a prisoner would be difficult, and if they let him go, he’d lead his compatriots straight to them. “Kali, get your bow ready,” she asides to the other woman.

Peri shakes her head again, eyes fixed on the dragon-man. "No, I don't think so. He seems more like a soldier -- one operating in uncertain or enemy territory."

Peregrine, still sorting things out, lifts her head as she hears the challenge. "Slam, I --" she begins, but can't interrupt him in time before he finishes. Staring at (and studying) the creature's form, she grimaces and flexes the fingers of her right hand as she warily watches the thing, asiding to Kali, "I don't think he's a knight even in name ..."

At this point do we get to know the whole 'has wings' portion of draconian physiology? ;)

"I wear my cloak over my clothing, Master Slam, not the other way around. Presumably he does the same with his armor." The expression Peregrine gives to the ogre is one of baffled irritation.

As her hurried sorting uncovers purses heavy with steel, she frowns as the small pile of them grows. "Somebody is spending a lot," she muses, experimentally holding the heavier chopping-weight blade for a moment. When she comes up with the maps, she gives a whistle of appreciation, unrolling first one, then another, to give each a scan. At Bander's request, she gestures him over and hands them to him. "Find out if Xak Tsaroth appears on any of these?" she asks him, and returns to her fast sorting.

If I can interject ...

They're constellations and planets. Most people in a pre-industrial world (where you can essentially always see the night sky) know the major constellations and what they're named in their area of the world -- which, in Dragonlance, are named after the very gods. In addition, there are/were no other competing mythologies, (e.g. Greek/Roman/Hebrew/Persian/Indian/Phoenician/Egyptian) which means no 'other gods' to displace the knowledge thereof. Everyone should recognize the three prime gods (Gilean, Paladine, Takhesis), and will probably recognize the names of the other gods even if they can't personally name all of them (for which I'd give a DC 10, since it's a relatively basic thing, a DC 15 for their portfolios, and DC 20 for more obscure sh!t).

Raistlin noticed the constellation of Takhisis was missing ... but nobody asked 'Who's that??'

At the lizard-man's answer, Peregrine draws in a quick, sharp breath; her focus on the thing intensifies, and her grip tightens on the walking-stick-slash-half-staff she'd been swinging. "That's kind of telling." She eyes the creature, then turns to look at the detritus of the rest, frowning as she steps away and kicks lightly through the robes and such that now decorate the road.

Staring at the collection, she suggests in a distracted voice, "Take his robe off. Or cloak, whatever it is. Let's see what we're dealing with." She then starts to rapidly go through what remains of the creatures' gear, sorting it into quick piles -- cloaks there, armor there, daggers there, swords there, whatever makes the most sense. Particular attention will be paid to purses and paperwork.

Peregrine shakes her head at the 'who turned them to stone' -- after all, she isn't capable of it -- and steps close to examine the stonelike corpse of one of the other creatures until it suddenly crumbles. "Well. That's ... new."

Flicking a remnant of snow off her hand, Peregrine finishes the movement, putting herself into opposition -- flanking -- the closest creature (putting her at B-10, flanking the draconian at C-9). "Use blunts -- the flat of your weapon!!" She, of course, doesn't need to worry about that, and swings her half-staff at the creature's skull.

Half-damage for #3, too -- the DC for the save (which I should have put in there, sorry) is a 16.

She herself starts to shift towards the potential threat, in part to see if she can't get a clear target on the majority of what Kali had termed 'scaly-skinned, golden-eyed Nerakese' without intersecting her own people ...

I was going to ask, based on this, that you swap the positions of Thalasi and I, but with a Move action I can get to my angle anyhow, so no problem. ;) I presume the squares are supposed to be the standard 5', yes? Just as an FYI, Slam should be 10' square.

Having been anticipating the violence which, with the 'scaly-skinned, golden-eyed Nerakese' pushing aside robes to draw weapons, now seems to be here, Peregrine moves swiftly forward and off to one side, slipping between her erstwhile compatriots and chanting the language of magic as she does so. Reaching her target location, she gives a swift glance at the beings, then unfurls her hands.

Countless spheres of white burst from the cone-like opening she makes with her hands, each one spitting out at high speed as soon as it's formed in order to make way for the next one to coalesce. Snowballs -- or perhaps a better term would be 'iceballs', like those made by particularly nasty children, wrapping snow around a core chunk of the denser frozen water -- slam into the foes again and again, a veritable flurry.

Do we have a map? Certain things, like flanking and AoE spell placement, benefit greatly from such.

How many of them are there, not incidentally? All we know right now is that there are 'some'.

From near the back of the group, Peregrine looks alternately amused and agahst at the back-and-forth 'no, I'm gonna be the one in danger!' interplay between Slam and Kalisuel; she would not be surprised if one of them got to trying to push the other one away from the potential threat these 'seekers' represent.

She herself starts to shift towards the potential threat, in part to see if she can't get a clear target on the majority of what Kali had termed 'scaly-skinned, golden-eyed Nerakese' without intersecting her own people ...

"Maddok, will you carry my pack again today?" inquires the brown-haired Red Robe. It is perhaps this that keeps her distracted, glancing towards the 'seekers' as she hefts the pack up for the minotaur to sling (if he's going to).

Previously ...
As Bander’s bouncing back and forth between her and Thalasi intensifies, it’s clear that Peregrine’s patience is indeed being tried. After about fifteen minutes of erratic interruptions, however, she pauses in her studying and looks up at the present example of the ‘children of Krynn’. “Bander,” she states calmly but firmly, “for a mage to memorize their spells, utter and uninterrupted concentration is required — very much like what is required to learn the casting in the first place. If you actually want to learn, we can teach you, but it would take a lot of focus and discipline from you. In the meanwhile, what Thalasi and I need is to focus on what we’ve selected to memorize for the day, spells that may be the difference between life and death for us all, and your very natural curiousity about the process is, to be frank, making that impossible. Would you be willing to help Maddok and Na’shok with figuring out whatever we’ll need to do, which way to go, to get to the road?”. Not necessarily useless, but ...

... definitely not here.

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Later ...

The human woman’s eyebrows lift as Slam attributes her suggestion to the elven male. On the tail of Kali’s embarrassed reply, she murmurs, “I believe I missed that as well.”

She doesn’t say any more, however — if they’re going to follow her idea, it doesn’t necessarily matter who gets the credit — and only listens with interest at Bander’s ramble about the Que-Kiri. “Hm. That ... may result in some difficulties, if they’ve recently had ogre trouble. Thalasi may have been more right than we’d wish.”

I ... guess that Slam is able to cast any clerical spell he wants out of the Staff of Mishakal?

After getting most of her time asleep, standing a stretch of watch-time with Slam (and giving him an odd look or three during it, wondering how he's staying awake so long), and getting another couple of hours' sleep, Peregrine wakes and gets to her own study, extracting her spellbook out of the bag inside her backpack.

Immediately after she finishes her study, though, she casts her first spell -- a washing gesture of her hands, across her face and down her front, along with the word "سریع بودن*" in Magius. The wrinkles and night-sweat ripples out of what she wore, but she then proceeds to change clothing anyhow -- switching out her dark red boots for dark green, her blue shirt for a clean white one, the dark blue hat for a light green one with a narrower brim. With the exception of her shirt and her mage's cloak/robe, she's now clad entirely in shades of green -- and even then, she's fingering a medium-green cloak, perhaps with the thought of concealing the red underneath it.

Spells changed!! Cast spell is Fastidiousness, of course.

Peregrine's expression becomes one of mild bafflement. "I wasn't ... oh," she says, visage clearing up as she realizes (perhaps mistakenly) that Slam was talking to Bander. She gives the ogre a long, puzzled glance -- he has, after all, failed to address Kalisuel's concern, a concern she herself shares about him -- but then gives a one-shouldered shrug. "Goin' back to sleep. Wake me when it's my turn," she reiterates.

Re-entering the shack, she looks over at Thalasi, gives a shrug, and lays back down; should no threat materialize, she'll be asleep again in only a few minutes.

Peregrine looks between Kali and Slam, then shrugs and turns her attention down towards Bander. "I suppose," she concedes. "Not a good idea to go stumbling around in the rain and dark, though."

Peregrine gives Slam a wry, tired smile at his joke, then looks up at the sky for several long moments, trying to get a sense of where the moons are, red and white; finally she speaks up and says, “I think it’s two or so hours past midnight. Maddok, Slam, you should get some sleep. Bander, do you want to stay up and take watch, or shall I?”

What time of night is it? Solinari was rising as we got on the beach; where is he now?

Her eyes still closed, Peregrine smiles, a little impishly. "Are you trying to convince me you should be hauled off? You stumbled across the language, Kali -- the resonance as my mother called it, the song, the rhythm, however you know it. For you it is a song, a pattern, one or three or six, which have some use. Can you write it? Can you put it down, pen and ink to parchment, so that your thoughts and knowledge can be considered and debated and used by others? When you can form that pattern into words that describe not only the shape of the magic you've found but also the shape of your mind, when you want to learn a spell for no other reason but the sheer delight in knowing it ... then you'll be on the path to the Tower. Until then, don't worry about it, and let's get some sleep."

The human woman gives a small smile to her ... not friend, exactly, but ... 'well-known acquaintance'. The two were undoubtedly going to find out quite a bit more about each other in the coming days, perhaps weeks, and perhaps might move further towards friendship. Her eyes close again, but the smile remains on her face. "For a little trick like that? No, Kali. The Conclave won't be interested in you until you develop much greater talent, akin to that which you'll undoubtedly see from Thalasi in the coming days, when we meet some serious trouble we can't slip away from. I know a thing or two as well ..."

She trails off, and one might be forgiven for thinking maybe she dozed off in the middle of talking, but then her eyes open again, and an eerie foxfire of red and white and weirdly-visible black, visible flame distinct in the dark which gives no real light, ripples around her eyes where the irises of brown normally rest. "You have to want the magic, Kali. Really, seriously, fiercely want it -- like food, like water, like ... like air. Want the magic as much, maybe more, than you want life. Not necessarily for what it can do, but ... for the knowing itself."

Another small smile, this one of rueful pity, though not necessarily for Kali, crosses her lips, and the coruscation dims, fades, and her brown gaze is back. "There is a cost to such desire -- though often enough, the desire itself is the cost. But until you truly pursue the magic, they'll have no interest in you. Rest easy."

Not needing to care for armor, confident in her magic's ability to tidy herself up (though make no mistake, a good long hot bath is clearly a sacred experience for followers of every god), Peregrine is sleeping in her clothing ... though were truth to be told, she's not exactly comfortable doing so; a wandering adventurer she's not and has never been. So the movements and shifting of the others is enough to keep her away from the depths of sleep, and though Kali's playing is tolerable, it isn't as good as Peregrine knows she can do. The murmured query does not come as a surprise.

Never having mastered the technique of cracking open one eye just a little bit, both of Peregrine's brown eyes open, albeit not all the way. "I'm still awake,", she tells the other young woman.

Is there a rag or piece of cloth preferably clean big enough to rap the cast iron pan in?

I can see I'm going to need to give Bander a claw hammer. After all, 'Kender will pick up anything not nailed down, though kender with claw hammers will get those too.' ;)

Peregrine pauses before going into the shack to take her belongings back from Maddok; placing her hand on the minotaur's arm, she smiles up at him. "Thank you," she says, simple and direct, as she judges is most appropriate with the bull-headed Blood Sea native. Shifting her gaze to Na'shok, she gives him a peculiar little nod of respect, almost a bow but only at the neck, held for a few moments longer than one normally would, then follows the others into the shack.

She does not, fortunately or no, have anything to really contribute to any sort of snack, but for herself she has no need for it; she'd eaten at the Inn before all the hullaballoo began. For a moment she looks towards the entrance, where Slam sits with Maddok; she shrugs, then goes about extracting a bedroll and a couple of blankets. She'll lend one of the latter to anyone who seems to need it, help to start the fire with an arcane gesture sort of like snapping her fingers and a murmur of "جرقه" (which ignites a section of the fire), and glances amongst the others for a moment before she sets out the bulls-eye lantern for use and settles into her bedding.

"Wake me when it's my turn to keep a look-out," she asks, leaving it to the others to decide when that is, and snuggles up to work on dozing off.

The first is good GMing advice; the other two sound like good rules for game flow.

Would certainly like to know what they are, yes.

Peregrine's player was, actually, leaving off saying what she guesses (because Peregrine ICly knows she isn't very good at it) to see if anyone else was going to try to check. This, for example, would be a prime moment for Maddok to lift his muzzle, sniff, and come out with the same information I got, just from his Survival +6's Take 10 result of 16.

However, her stated words alone ('I'd hate to get wet or freeze') could easily have the same effect.

Kalisuel wrote:

Bander Drunkensquirrel wrote:

Maddok I looked back and I haven't seen if you mentioned that you are a ranger or a woodsman of some kind in character.

Bander assumes that you are not talkative (unless you are talking through Nash then your more talkative) and figures you for a warrior of some kind. I don't know if others are not turning to you for ranger role tasks but I know that is why Bander isn't.

Mostly it's because Kali assumes that she can move much more quietly than Maddok. That and we're kinda in the shakedown period where everyone is learning what the others can do. Once we get to know each other some more, I'm sure we'll be figuring out who's best at what.

Yeah I was just noting that it hadn't come up. And there have been a few times where people where people were encouraged to scout or find things and that us not knowing he's a ranger because we are still in the get to know each other phase of things meant people are acting and he might want to contribute or wonder why people were jumping in where he might have good take on it.

Peregrine asked Bander and Na'shok because they're smaller, closer to the ground, and would most likely be able to both hide and get through the underbrush more easily -- and because she knows that if a kender isn't given something to do, they'll find something to do, usually to everyone's dismay. ;)

With her back turned, Peregrine doesn't see Slam's cutting of his hand, or the prayer and healing of it, with the wooden staff turning to the blue crystal that the hobgoblins have been searching for; she does, however, hear the murmur of amazement from the others, and when she turns her head one direction to use her peripheral vision to glance behind her, Thalasi ignores her and goes the other way.

For a moment, she closes her eyes; a deep breath, a moment's meditation, and she retrieves her lantern and opens up the narrow slot once more, using the light to guide her up the path, leaving the shore and the boat (stolen or not) behind. She doesn't really have a destination, she's just working to get away from the situation and let go of stress.

Eventually, Bander's stories of the gods reach her ears, and though she opens her mouth to correct him on particulars, the kender outrageousness of several of them give her pause, then cause her to close her mouth. Belief is a strange thing, she muses to herself, and the beliefs of kender stranger still. She listens for a while more, then admits to herself, Entertaining, though, however incoherent.