Selene Lebeda's page

Yeah, I'll hold out hope he returns. Sometimes life kicks you in the face and you don't have the extra 5 minutes to post on paizo.com

I AM HERE

O, you meant the GM, whoops

Pretty much.

I think we're all attached to the game, so worst case we have to find a second gm to pinch hit while Wyrm recovers from real life. We could call him GM One.

Enjoy the vacation!

Bugger. Not gelling tonight. Have much of tomorrow off, will try again. Sorry, all.

More than fair. We're waiting, but we're waiting because we want everyone happy with it. Good luck finding the words.

I think we're all invested here. Let's try to be patient and let the DM come back. I doubt they're gone for good. It was probably just a busy week.

"Your majesty, gentles, this keep is lost. They have breached the grounds and established a gate. We must flee, and quickly, or we will all be meat before that same gate. Word must be sent. There is a summoning being worked here I have not seen before, and even the quick glimpse gives me pause. Messages must travel. My lords, this is larger than Kradira, and yet our duty is clear. This is a new wound, beginning. We must make an escape, and do so in a way to let these people flee. We cannot fight a pitched battle for long."

Selene's words start calmly enough, then pick up urgency as what she sees begins to register. She grabs her gear and makes for the top of the stairs intending to provide covering fire from the railing.

As the scene plays out in the courtyard she cries out "'ware the wall, they know we're in here!"

@gm what did Selene see?

@GM. Selene will save is +4, +1 if the inspire courage happens to apply. I disliked the spoiler as prose outcome as well. I'm fine with Assuming she'd hit 14 or 15 on the save to avoid padding the gameplay thread.

Scrying in general is kinda neat and seems pretty thematic for wilderness games. It does have its own pile of rules weirdness though (because of course it does). For example, Scrying sensors block most non specialized attacks from affecting the castertby dint of being independent organs, here's the relevant bit of srd. So unless the effect calls out specifically that it travels through a sensor assume it doesn't. Casting mind affecting spells that don't call out sensors, so something like cause fear requires mythic detect scrying. Lydia's point about seeing the blizzard is spot on although clairvoyance/clairaudience doesn't need line of sight/effect.

Essentially It's the snow crash effect where looking at a picture largely can't hurt you. There are a bunch of scrying specific effects/spells, and interactions, including spells that target sensors or divination that don't use traditional sensors because every designer has their own take on it. This is also probably why a bunch of mid and high level demons have teleport. Detect scrying or similar can give you an idea who is looking in then you send your goon squad after them.

"

The words are barely out of her mouth before Selene realizes her gift is active. She quickly strips the bonds from her musket, stepping along the table as she does. A moment later the doors burst open and with a gesture her sensor appears. Selene' voice is calm, even as her eyes fill with shadows and light. She relays what she sees behind the demons, and moves away from the crowd toward her liege and the door behind them.

@GM - Per your advice about focusing on character instead of caravan I've bought a bunch of mundane gear and linked it in a spreadsheet for each of Selene and Samantha. I'll also probably spend the gold for a horse+riding gear rather than be exotic about oxen or w/e just to keep it simple. I've set aside "Horse Fund" 350gp on each character accordingly. Does brevoy have a clear preference for heavy or light horses? If it was Taldor I'd clearly be getting heavy, but I don't know this part of the map that well. Think that's the last of the mundane stuff.

Regarding weapon stuff - Selene/Samantha would keep their focus items which happen to be ranged weapons, but they'd have turned over the ammunition to be held in the plot appropriate place to peacebind it. (So instead of tying up the musket/bow, they wax sealed the ammo pouch/quiver?). If that doesn't work for whatever reason, keep spell component pouches. Their spellbooks are banished via secluded grimoire, although they do have lesser books with them in their packs.

@Lyda I am laughing really hard about sad kitty looking at lyda all meal with the "this is your fault, can we eat them?" expression.

We're also on our best behavior in front of the king, and honestly playing imaginary racists sounds exhausting and not particularly fun. If you really want to explore overcoming prejudice I'll task one of my level three followers with being a bigot about tieflings at some point in the future and we can figure that scene out collaboratively, but I'm not signing up for that in every scene because it's just not fun to be the foil there.

Selene and Samantha are widely traveled and cosmopolitan. You could be a hellknight and they'd be polite at a party, much less this event.

Selene simply watches the rising tensions, her expression bland as she waits for the King's orders on placement. Compared to some of her apprentices, this was positively cordial.

Selene waves her apprentice off as Samantha continues to think about which magi might be useful for weather related tasks.

"I think the logistics will sort itself out, assuming our companions can collaborate. They all seem competent, and steady. I do agree that we need some chain of command - I'm perfectly willing to take orders or give them, but arguing in the snow, a storm, or battle is a great way to get killed. We have some able field commanders in our company, do we not?"

She nods, then continues.

"They're the reasonable choice during this journey to interface with the scouts and the train, and dispatch the trouble clearing companies as required. As for staying in touch, sending a voice over the miles is possible but unreliable. Better is the simple pen and ink, and perhaps some waterproof bags. We can agree how to mark buried reports easily enough."

@GM TWO - I never heard back from you if it's reasonable to have a wagon with some ox for the frozen flame, and how much I can spend from each character's gear budget to supplement it?

"Well said Theodric. I've spent some time a merchant, and some time guarding merchants, and the one thing I am certain of is that once word of this little expedition into the middle of nowhere in winter gets out, every half starved bandit from here to the border of Galt is going to come looking for us. If we were on boats, we'd outrun rumor, but wagons in winter? Not a chance. Our best hope, therefore, is going to be a policy of zero runaways. We can't stop the word of today getting out, but we can stop the people we come into contact with on our journey from bearing tales of our location, and until we have a fortified position from which to begin the business of taming the wilderness, we're vulnerable. That means we need to find and control the existing traders. Someone buys the goods the bandits steals, and they bring them out to sell to the rest of us. That someone will happily sell the bandits or the bandits news of our travels. Those men will need to be convinced to join our merry band, or at least kept from running off to bear tales."

She grimaces before resuming talking.

"I assume everyone involved has their wagons of supplies, and we've just sworn to protect our share of farmers and milliners and the like. Those are honest men, women, and they have their children to look after. A brave people, our Krádirans, but to a longbow they look like so many victims, and those men I just mentioned would happily slit their throats if they thought to escape. No, we need to keep the entrepreneurial murderers of the wilderness far far away from them. Neither our supplies nor our charges will be any use at all if they end up dead or scattered in a bandit ambush, much less bandit escapes. Taking slaves is an abomination, prisoners endangers the people of Krádira so we need to put those men to work, and we're not going to be able to trust them. Any ideas?"[b]

"So that's the first problem, but even if that goes swimmingly we'd be foolish to count on it. Plan for the worst and you can only be pleasantly surprised. It's always served me well in matters of magic and trade, I imagine it will serve us well in matters of politics and logistics. I think the worst that can happen is something Political, but we'll have to talk about that later. What's the second worst then? My guess is that the second worst that can happen is our Krádirans end up scattered by a bandit attack on the wagon train. We'll need to have a plan in that case. First if we do end up scattered, we'll want a place for the train to regroup. Second, we'll want a place for the members of this room to regroup. Any ideas?"

Knowledge Geography: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (12) + 9 = 21
Profession Merchant: 1d20 + 13 ⇒ (4) + 13 = 17

"I have one for the farmers at least. The best I know of the roads is that there's spring wagon trains from Restov to New Stetsvan. If we were in the west I could draw you a map of the river with timings by vessel all the way down to Mivon, but the east is just wagons, oxen, and more wagons. I hired a local driver team, names Kit and Company, and I suggest that we do our best to strip the city of drivers if we have the funds for it. Not only do we assure ourselves we have the only men and women with knowledge of the road, we also keep them from talking to their friends in the wilderness, of either sort. Once we're on the road, I'll be sure to ask Kit if he knows more, but he said 'I'm not lofty like the rest of you, and the animals need me'. I believe him."

Her impersonation of the old driver comes with a grin before she continues.

"Plans and Politics seem as bad as Plans and the River and now I sound like my aunt. Longwinded. My apologies, Sire. Anyways, the south road is a wagon road, which means there's going to be some kind of wagon posts along it. I couldn't tell you their names if you paid me, but the names don't matter for this. Just that there are some buildings out there. The posts might even be abandoned for the winter for all I know. They might be little more than shacks. Still, it's a building with a roof and enough of a wall to keep the tack and tools dry, and that's more than those farmers will have if they get separated from us. Any chance we could re-purpose one of them as an entry point to our kingdom of the wild without upsetting your cousin too much? Or creatively paint it? Finding our missing sheep in the wilderness will be a great deal easier if they have somewhere they know to go."

She sighs, then looks around the room, and her bearing shifts a moment as she peers up into the corners. The sigh is louder this time and she nods once to herself.

"Finally I hate to be a bearer of ill tidings, but everything we're saying now can be overheard if someone with talent or the coin to hire it felt so inclined. It's just too big a room and too many people passed through it to be certain it's us alone. I'm a modestly talented diviner, and my apprentices wouldn't have any trouble listening in. I'm sure that's true of plenty of other mages both present and absent. That means whatever we decide for our own security, we should wait till we're on the road to discuss in detail. Nethys knows I hate having to try and keep secrets, but we're going to need them in the days ahead."

She nods at the elf's comment.

"As for melting snow? That's trivial enough that my apprentices could handle it near the wagons, and we could easily task someone to go with the outrider group for large drifts. It's the beasts on two legs and four I'm concerned about, not the water. And there's another thing I never would have said a year ago."

She grins once more and waves Samantha over, noting the comment about apprentice assignments to her second.

Well, you're swearing fealty to the King and the People; the latter is a general 'to the country' sort of thing, but swearing fealty to his heirs, etc. can lead to the nastiest sort of civil war and the like.

Of course, but civil wars are only a concern to the possible rebel scum. To the loyalists who support the rightful dynasty...etc

Nice touch on the long lived gnome swearing to the princess. I thought about adding something about "heirs and successors by law" there but couldn't come up with a phrasing I liked. It works nicely for Nimue though.

Hurray.

Selene is meticulous, she's a diviner, she's a gunsmith, and she's a merchant. So that's 4 reasons she hates being unprepared right there and I'm sure there's more. If I could justify naming a follower shax and updating this for pathfinder I probably would, but time being what it is I'm trying to hurry up and get everything checked and double checked as quickly as possible, so having a blueprint for caravan of goods to start from is great.

The white haired woman, Selene, walks slowly forward her eyes fixed on Chalm's face. She's easily recognizable wearing as she does the standard of her company on her cloak an iced over flame. Not to mention the sign of Nethys against her neck, or the long white gloves and colors of the House Lebeda. She pulls the gloves from her hands as she walks, tucking them carefully in her belt, a heavier belt for a heavier blade than expected for a woman. The blade itself is, of course, absent. She is no youth, but a woman in her prime, and she walks with the grace of her family, and the weight of it. She sinks silently to her knees before her new King in a form any swordsman would recognize, a simple gesture of respect offered to a teacher. Something lends the posture of open defenselessness a stark significance. Perhaps it is the tone of the day, perhaps it is her sincerity. This is not a woman who lies well, or easily. She's built her reputation on honest dealings, as the watchers remember. She speaks quietly, her voice rising in intensity as she speaks the oath. Her eyes fixed on Cham's face, shining with emotion. Her hands, weathered by years of sword work, tight against the medallion and arms quivering with strength of emotion.

"I, Selene de Lebeda, daughter of Amia de Lebeda and Menas Acavna y Morilla, being of sound mind and without reservation, swear fealty of mind, body, and soul to the King and People of Krádira. I swear to bear loyal and true service to the King and People of Krádira, and to honor, preserve, protect, and uphold the laws, justice, and mercy of and for the People of Krádira against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to bear true faith and allegience to the King and People of Krádira. I swear to faithfully execute the charges given to me, to protect and guide the people over whom I am granted rulership, guarding them in times of peril, nurturing them in times of peace, leading them in times of war, and governing them always with justice tempered by mercy, as the gods give me the wisdom to so do. This I swear to do until my final death, the world's end, or my lord release me."

By the end her eyes are full of tears and her smile is wide, but her voice never waivers. It pierces the room, high and clear like a falcon's cry. For a moment she looks younger than the princess. She finishes her oath and bows as deeply as she can, letting the tears drip onto their combined hands, and her hair fall forward to shield her face. Trying to compose herself, using every harsh method her parents insisted she learn. This is no time to embarrass herself, or her King.

When told to rise, she stands smoothly. No hint of discomfort appears evident as she unfolds, even though her knees must be killing her. Selene bows once more to the King and his family, then backs away her eyes fixed upon them, her back straight, the remains of the tears on her cheeks. She takes care to turn the inside of her glove out, and receiving a nod from the princess moves at last to blot the tears. Finally, she bows once more, then pulls the gloves on as she turns away to find her place. Recognizing Theodric she murmurs.

"It is good to know you will be with us Sir. Might I stand beside you? If you have questions, let me be your eyes."

As she stands her eyes rake over the crowd once, assessing and cold, then at his assent she murmurs a concise description of the proceedings, with precise distances and angles to each personage in relation to him with a crisp smattering of details. She gives herself over to the moment as another Elector-Count is raised, doing her best to commit what she narrates to memory. Her smile creeps back onto her face as the new nation, her nation, is born, already appraising the value of her fellows, and dreaming of the work ahead.

As the ceremony draws to a close, she thinks a moment of her family, then dismisses them entirely.

This will be hard, but with tears or will, it will be done. Finally, a task worth doing, a chance to prove...everything. Abadar, Nethys, Shelyn, Iori, and any other god responsible for this turn of the river I thank you. Krádira