Souls At War's page

The Raven Black wrote:

I have sometimes read that 3-parters felt a bit rushed and could have been developed more.

Some of them do. That said, some of the 6-parters feel padded.

Partly why I think they could consider mixing 4 and 5 parters in once in a while, especially if/when hitting "too much for 3, but not enough for 6".

Edit: as a side note, I wonder how people feel about slow burn types like Council Of Thieves.

nephandys wrote:

Is anyone else getting a bad feeling about the upcoming changes to the loyalty program? The way it’s been described so far - lots of vague “coming soon” language and talk of a “better experience” - just screams corpo-speak for we’re cutting benefits, but trying to make it sound like a good thing.

Let’s be honest: when companies say they’re “enhancing” or “evolving” a program to “better serve us,” it usually translates to more restrictions, fewer rewards, or a new tier system that’s harder to climb. They frame it as a win for the customer, but it almost always serves their bottom line, not ours.

Until they drop actual details, there’s no way to know for sure, but the language so far feels like a red flag. If the changes were genuinely beneficial, they probably wouldn’t be so cagey or need to spin it this hard. They'd be shouting them from the rooftops instead of deferring them for a future blog.

Would love to be wrong on this, but right now it feels like we’re being softened up for a downgrade.

I know that feeling, but usually Paizo is a good company, somehow an exception among the big names in the hobby industry.

They might also be cagey due to things out of their control.

I say this as someone who currently exclusively uses the forums to socialize about Pathfinder stuff and currently does not participate in organized play at all: The org play stuff needs overhauls much more, I think priorities are misplaced on that one. That is, unless the reason for prioritizing the forums is mostly or entirely to do with the company's internal needs (i.e. easier moderation, easier reporting and removal of spam/harassment, better for the blog, etc.), in which case I do think it is warranted.

After the 4chan hack, I would say that improved security is both external and internal needs, but also something that was probably already on the "to do" list anyway.

Since the primary point of switching to 4 Adventure Paths a year was to give folks additional chances to like one enough to want to buy it, swtiching back to 3 would erode that goal while not appealing to folks who want full 1–20 level six-part Adventure Paths. Seems like a solution that would disappoint everyone but also give us on the Narrative team another dose of disruptions to the workflow, so I don't see this happening.

Still something that can be talked about, especially when wanting to try experimental ideas/APs.

On 12 volumes a year:
* 1 x 12 (would be slow, and the thing about variety)
* 2 x 6, what was used before.
* 3 x 4
* 4 x 3, currently used.
* 6 x 2, kinda short
* 12 x 1, OK, that's pretty much standalone modules.
some combo like 2 + 3 + 3 + 4 or 3 + 4 + 5.

And with a dose of "themes in APs", branching/splitting AP, granted those would probably be an headache to make.

My point being, you are coming at this from an "Order/Law is good, chaos is bad" perspective, thus further making the differentiation between "holy vs. Unholy meaningless.

Pointed out before that the Nine Alignments system was a way to avoid that, at least technically.

Zoken44 wrote:

Except now there are no forces of law and chaos.

Not true actually. To our knowledge Axiomites and Proteans haven't ceased their conflict and their ideals haven't changed either. They just don't deal damage types powered by their ideologies anymore because Paizo technically doesn't have the rights to do that (without using the OGL which is the thing they don't want to do)

There might be ways around that, but Law/Chaos is apparently less interesting than Good/Evil.

The Neutral alignments on either axis were also underutilised and often misinterpreted/misunderstood.

Expectation management: Will Liralarue get mentioned or show up?

bit more snarky... decided on the fourth R Of The RuneLords yet?

The Raven Black wrote:

Arkat wrote:

I think that you have to consider that Shen Ra is right there guarding the throne.

NOBODY is going to resort to violence while someone has made it to the throne room with the intent of finding out whether they're worthy enough to sit in the throne as the new emperor.

Shen Ra has blasted many unworthies in the past. I'm pretty sure they're not going to let anyone else (Oracular Council) essentially make the decision for them.

I believe Shen Ra would deem anyone who cannot get past the Oracular Council as unworthy anyway.

I suspect Shen Ra isn't on anybody's payroll, except maybe Shizuru's.

Keep in mind that every single candidate the Oracular Council sent up to sit on the throne has been blasted into a pile of dust.

In fact, I suspect the Oracular Council and Shen Ra are very much at odds with each other. I'm guessing the only reason Shen Ra hasn't blasted them too is because none of them is foolish enough to sit on the Five Dragon throne.

Considering the Oracular Council's reaction to the mere concept that the Eternal Emperor could be reborn elsewhere in Tian Xia, they are definitely at odd with each others.

I think the restriction is on if you are sanctified, spells that have the trait opposite to your sanctification are anathema. So if you are a Besmara worshiper who is Holy, Unholy spells would be anathema to you, and vice versa. At least that's how I would rule it.

I think the old Law/Chaos divider is genuinely unnecessary. A vestige left over from D&D. Especially because even if you get into "Chaos" a character being "chaotic" could be further put onto a spectrum of Ambivalent or Apathetic. The difference there is the difference in the chaos of Deadpool, who is chaotic because the things he cares about are mercurial, but he cares passionately, and Joker, who doesn't care about anything because to him nothing matters (Toxic Nihilism)

The subdivider is Good vs Evil to a degree, kinda to avoid the "Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil" thing many games had.

The issue with D&D and Pathfinder was that most of the focus was on the Good/Evil axis with Law/Chaos often barely there, and Neutral an after-thought a good deal of the time.

Useful to remember that there are people in Isger who want to throw Cheliax out, so a lot of opportunities for many factions and sides.

I think there's also a big separation between say chromatic and metallic dragons.

And another thing that factors in (that I'm not sure we know much about) is how many eggs do dragons typically lay?

In general (but not an absolute rule by far) is that creatures that have many young, tend to be less involved with them. And creatures with fewer young tend to take more care of them.

It's different evolutionary strategies, one of "if I have enough of them, some of them statistically will survive to adult hood". I think chromatic dragons might fall into this category.

While metallic dragons might achieve success by investing a lot into a single egg/child and being heavily involved.

For number vs care, there are difference between large hive types and smaller clutch types, and smaller clutches can vary a lot.

Honestly, I'd write her as not giving holy or unholy...but that turns her into a really bad choice for a cleric, and I'm not even sure how it'd work mechanically. They downplayed the role of law and chaos in PF2, but for deities like Besmara where the chaos part was the strongest portion of her alignment, it leaves her in an awkward spot.

Maybe one day (PF3?) we'll get Order and Disorder sanctifications and creatures with weaknesses and resistance to it.

This was kind of an issue in PF1 as well, and sort of inherited from DnD.

For the sanctification thing, maybe some rule patch/append.

Thread reminds me I once thought of ways to get half-dragons that don't depend on the dragon-daddy thing, which seems to be the default assumption, and the idea of female dragons leaving their eggs unguarded for a few hours at the time does provide some opportunities.

I honestly think not enough attention is paid to the fact that ALL temples to Cayden Cailean are bars. Combined with his popularity among people of almost all classes, and I almost wonder if a fully secular bar might only exist in Rahadoum!

Same thing with Calistria and brothels, actually. And Abadar's banks. And forges for Torag, even beyond dwarven ones.

Religion plays a MUCH bigger role in the everyday goings-on of Golarion when so many places for work and leisure can be owned and operated by various churches, but I feel sometimes that gets barely touched on, even WHEN you're playing a cleric!

Of those three, Banks are the only one with a strong divine connection, other deities have some interests in brothels, like Urgathoa, and some brothels operate without a divine patron, forges also have Droskar (Dwarf) and Minderhal (Giant) among others, and some forges either rely on other divine patrons or none.

It IS unusual for volume 1 of an Adventure Path to be available before a Player's Guide is. That's not the norm, and we try not to do that, but... sometimes reality has other complications in mind, I guess.

Was it Hell's Vengeance? One of them was cursed; big site update 2 days before street/release date, which wasn't a good idea, especially since pretty much all product lines had a release, and an Humble Bundle sale that caused a catastrophic increase in trafic to the site, which did result in quite the crash... and a player's guide that was released closer to book 2 as a result.

Edit: might have been "War for the Crown"

Regarding Templates...they are for monsters...not for characters. I had this discussion a while ago with a player and showed him where it says this, Im hoping you dont make me hunt it up again ;)

Some of them can be applied to humanoids/PCs, and some of those do show up during the AP.

On another note, I will be bowing out of this one.

Would you mind linking the Player's Guide or whatever it is we'd need?

@I'm Hiding in Your Closet: On your Paizo page, if you place your cursor over "My Account" a list pops up and you'll click on "Digital Content".

You'll see a full list of Player's Guides. Just scroll down until you find CC. Once you do, click on it and download and you'll have it. :) *thumbs up*

Carrion Crown Player's Guide since I'm not sure those are automatically added to download.

Few questions:
- How will you handle age categories?
- Young Characters?
- Templates?

My headcanon is ~snip~

I think you posted that in the wrong thread.

I will admit, I have quite a negative view on the classic pirates, given I have readen up on how gruesome that got. So I do appriciate this

Many works of fictions depict them in darker light, especially when they are up against armies/navies depicted as knights in shining armors type. Granted, some Pirates were just that bad.

To be honest, many Neutral Deities feel/felt closer to Evil than actual neutrality.

Claxon wrote:

The "take what you want" but "be loyal to your crew" part I think is what keeps Besmaran adherents from going full murder hobo.

Also, if you look at history, pirates usually didn't want to kill their targets. Because if you became notorious for killing your prey, they would fight harder and to the death (if they thought their only way out alive was to kill you). Ideally pirates just want their prey to surrender and give over their stuff.

And stealing is bad, but like, not as bad as murder.

You hit the nail on the head

I completly aggree with you

My question is not, can there be non-evil pirates, that I aggree with
I am talking specifically Holy (good aligned) Clerics of a Goddess of PIracy. Someone who has good intentions but will only raid and plunder as their lifes work. How would THAT work

Jack is a fun guy, but I wouldn't call him a really morally upstanding person.

While Good vs Evil is one thing, it can be useful to remember the whole Law vs Chaos part, and maybe avoid conflating Good with Law and Evil with Chaos.

Also, Robin Hood as a "good thief"

Yeah, that's one of the few who does suffer from changes in editions, rules, terms, etc.

Worked well with Positive Energy / Heal vs Negative Energy / Harm, but not that well with the connotations of the Holy/Unholy terminology.

Also, what Claxon pointed out.

For what it's worth, Abadar's been associated with monkeys as a sacred animal since around the early 90s when I first created him for my homebrew campaign.

A less cheeky reply is to note that for the best and most accurate canonical answers to things like this, print products are the place to go to first. When there's discrepancies, skew toward the most recent printed products for accuracy.

We don't know how Abadar was in your homebrew, so hard to judge.

But I kind of agree with OP that monkey is an odd choice, even among other primates.

I would also like to point out that Casmaron should absolutely give us the ability to create harpies. We already have similar flying peoples, and it would be completely wrong to deprive us of such capabilities with harpies, especially considering that they are one of the first things that come to mind when we think of flying creatures in fantasy.

Curious how those get balanced compared to others.

id prefer age of ashes or agents of edgewatch, SoG is really good as is

AoE is an interesting case, it wasn't well received, which would normally DQ it from a compilation/remaster, yet it is one AP that could gain a lot from a remaster.

GM Cthulhu wrote:

My party is slowly working their way to Gallowspire.

Some fights were childishly easy: The Pallis Sunrise had a feeble AC of 20 and lasted about two rounds after the party used the Wand of Communal Protection from Energy (fire). The Tempest Guards were sitting ducks to area effect spells. Otto Canrivash was wiped out after someone used invisibilty purge early on. The various graveknights encountered haven't been much of a challenge either.

Next week they'll encounter Tycha Ghuzmaar. He could be nasty if he can use his death attack in, but his stealth is such that he will probably be seen before he can get his three rounds of study in. I think I'll give him a potion of invisibility to give him a boost. If I don't, I think that fight will be too easy as well.

Tycha's not going to stand and fight to second death. He's gonna run. I also gave him the same out [invisibility] so that he could show up w/ Amaretos [and negotiated his escape by showing them how to turn off the portal thingys... just to return and betray the party when they finally left the dungeon, along w/ one of the other Council Libertine [the mounted one from the surface] had resurrected [lucky me! I rolled a 2 for the # of days for her to return!]]

One GK is a pushover. But two of them make for a great challenge, w/ the different energy damages and their unique immunities and attacks. We even got to a point w/ the Tycha / Amaretos fight where they were back to back against the party, and got to yell, "Just like the old days!" to give them some characterization.

[was missing your updates! hoped you hadn't dropped your campaign!]

Main challenge with GraveKnights is that they are hard to permanently get rid of... they are also supposed to be leaders of armies of undeads, but this rarely get used.

For some things, the degree of success of failure is known, but perhaps not what the effect is. Is Unrest or Ruin going to increase by some amount? Is a hostile army going to get a bonus? etc.

This is pretty much what JJ, Tridus and I are talking about, it would be after the "you succeed/fail", but before describing what it means/does and any extra roll(s).

Souls At War wrote:

Magic Butterfly wrote:

I was reading through the LO: Tian Xia book and noticed that, canonically, Ameiko has not used the seals to rebuild the other four Imperial Families of Minkai. I know that this is likely because the assumption is that the PCs of Jade Regent would take on those roles, and that this can't be in canon, but I also think that could be a cool adventure.

Isn't the canon reason being the the PCs were already made backup scions?

I think there is a different concern. I think it is about having Minkaian characters.

Someone was asking why the PC don't become scions of the other families, if I remember correctly, characters can't be scions of more than one family, and the PCs were already made scions of one.

Thank you, so basically it's an optional reroll with a +2 circumstance bonus, but the GM is not allowed to tell you the outcome (most likely only applies to events then)

the GM is allowed to tell the outcome of the second roll.

I think the concept of levels, especially in PF2, is a larger marker of superiority than stat boosts. A level 2 person performs similarly to a level 1 person w/ +1 (+2 in PF1) in some stats; +1 across the board in all trained activities vs. +1 in the activities based off stats the other person didn't boost, maybe an extra skill or language.

And w/ PF2's NPC build mindset where one's spectrum of performance is based only on level, that's even more true.

So to determine whether Azlanti are superior one would have to look at the levels of their commoners in one sense and exemplars in another. And I'm unsure they outperform the folk in combat zones, much less Hermea.

Your post point out one of the issues with full blooded Azlanti, The +2 to all stats was one thing, but all the stated ones were 20-25 PB and Level 15-20 in PC classes which did make them feel even more broken.

Not only can you! I did do this.

Once my players had settled into rulership of the Stolen Lands, I had each of them build a secondary character at 1 level below the 1st character as an Agent of the Kingdom.

So when players needed a group of adventurers to go exploring, it was a group that didn't consist of the ruling body of their burgeoning nation. The main characters would still show up when there were explorations or events tied more specifically to their own characters or the main narrative of each book, but it meant that the party had a lot more flexibility in how they tackled the challenges of the AP.

Would definitely recommend.

Hell, could have a Rulership + intrigue group, an exploration group and a general troubleshooters group.

Admittedly, the roll to result thing might not work well with things like play by post.

I was reading through the LO: Tian Xia book and noticed that, canonically, Ameiko has not used the seals to rebuild the other four Imperial Families of Minkai. I know that this is likely because the assumption is that the PCs of Jade Regent would take on those roles, and that this can't be in canon, but I also think that could be a cool adventure.

Isn't the canon reason being the the PCs were already made backup scions?

The Raven Black wrote:

The death of Gorum unleashed violence and a taste for war everywhere. Wanting peace is likely to become a rare trait, even in those who were that wise before.

And what Gorum would want from his death would be for people to finally throw down and solve that problem that has been hanging over their heads for a while. So he'd want Andoran and Cheliax to have it out instead of endlessly preparing for war, he'd like Nex and Geb to get back at it, etc.

Might require Nex (the person) to show his mug again.

zimmerwald1915 wrote:

That said, anyone whose takeaway from World War I is limited to its inciting incident (and who makes that inciting incident the assassination of Franz and Sophie rather than the German blank check to Austria and the subsequent Austrian ultimatum to Serbia!) is Doing It Wrong.

This is the problem with history. The 'inciting incident' of WWI could easily be said to the last King of France convening the 3 estates to discuss tax reform.

*snip*

Can be useful to make distinctions between events that add fuel/powder-kegs and events that spark conflicts, and of those, which kind/scale of conflicts, like Civil War vs ("normal") War vs World War, escalation can also happen, and some sparks lit slow burning fuses.

Souls At War wrote:

Kavlor wrote:

I think we will have this sides:

Cheliax, Ravounel, Nidal, Isger, Katapesh goverment, Mzali, Shackles, Korvosa, Molthune, Oprak

vs

Andoran, Nimrathas, Katapesh Firebrands, Senghor, Vidrian, Nimrathans, Kraggodan, Five King Mountains

I don't see the Shackles teaming up with Cheliax.

Also, many nations and groups would probably stay neutral until their opposite take sides, with some "play/trade with all sides" types in between.

This is also asuming A vs B, not some A vs B vs C thing.

For the Shackles, maybe Cheliax doesn't do a full alliance but instead offers the pirate lords letters of marque that lets their ships through the Arch of Aroden so they can prey on Andoran shipping? Privateering like that was pretty common back in the 1700s, so it would make sense that nations might do it in Golarion as well. Would make for some fun mini adventures as well, where the PCs can engage in ship combat!

Would still be weird for the Shackles to side with Cheliax... and Cheliax probably wouldn't be the only one using privateers and mercenaries.

have to ask, where does the "forged by Aroden" part come from?

I reminded myself today that the Tower of Slant Shadows had a strange syncretic religion pop up around it a few Golarion-decades ago - cultists of Desna and of Rovagug who originally named together simply to protect the Star Tower from a group of demodands (shaggy and tarry, iirc). One interesting dimension which probably has a slight (but prolly no more than) influence on their religious understanding is that both are opposed to Zonny K but are now defending his works or one of them, at least... So there is a TINY chance that he might end up being worshiped by the cult as well? Mostly, I imagine it would just be Desna and Rovagug.

Complicating the question is that James Jacobs has said that they wouldn't be doing anything with demodands in 2e XD

Wondering if anyone has any ideas about what that syncretism might look like and how it has evolved in the time gap between 1e and 2e (both from a world building POV and mechanically as a 2e pantheon)?

I don't see Rovagug being interested in protecting the Star Towers, especially since he gain from them being destroyed.

I think we will have this sides:

Cheliax, Ravounel, Nidal, Isger, Katapesh goverment, Mzali, Shackles, Korvosa, Molthune, Oprak

vs

Andoran, Nimrathas, Katapesh Firebrands, Senghor, Vidrian, Nimrathans, Kraggodan, Five King Mountains

I don't see the Shackles teaming up with Cheliax.

Also, many nations and groups would probably stay neutral until their opposite take sides, with some "play/trade with all sides" types in between.

This is also asuming A vs B, not some A vs B vs C thing.

Lord Fyre wrote:

Mathmuse wrote:

Real-world armies are thousands and tens of thousands rather than hundreds, but fantasy nations, both in literature and in games, tend to have tiny populations. I calculated that the entire Ironfang Legion could have at most ten thousand individuals.

Actually, real world armies in the Middle Ages tend to be a lot smaller then most people realize. 500-1,000 men would have been considered a large force.

Larger set piece battles did occur (The Siege of Antioch (1097 C.E.) had a Crusader force of 40,000 men!), but they were quite rare, and usually ruinous for both sides.

Not to mention most action was not the big pitched battles but skirmishes and raids.

Moreover narratively even in battles with thousands of forces on both sides, you don't need to focus on what all the actors are doing, you focus on your PCs. Are they part of the cavalry who are going to charge the enemy or pull the enemy cavalry away to avoid that happening to their side? are they in the front line holding the line so that the enemy can't get to the mages and healers? Are they commanders doing the inspiring speech and giving orders? Are they the bannermen holding their sides banners so that morale remains even in the toughest moments? That is far more important to how battles in games like pathfinder goes.

Might still need a way to tell how each forces are doing, as it can help or hinder the PCs in a similar way that the PCs' actions can help or hinder their forces.

You're not having them earn income every week?

Even without earning income, my party (I'm the GM) has more than WBL tables suggest anyway. I did find Quest for the Frozen Flame to be lacking, but that was more about the type of AP it is (survival, really).

There are APs where rolls can wildly influence wealth.

I did suggest they earn income, but all but 1 pc scoffed at the idea. /shrug.

More and more it sounds like the AP simply isn't for them.

Edit: reading some of your other posts/threads, their issues could be with PF2e.

Thread kind of reminds me of the issues people had with Bastards of Golarion, and to a lesser extent, Blood of the Beast.

Souls At War wrote:

Sibelius Eos Owm wrote:

Souls At War wrote:

Thanks and goodwill only go so far, especially when being a one way thing, gratitude won't put food on the table most of the time.

Well that's... that's actually kind of exactly how it worked in premodern villages and small towns. I get what you're saying, but as it happens, the network of gratitude and reciprocity is what put food on the table when you had a bad harvest. You banqueted your neighbours when you had surplus and they returned the favour.

Yeah, but in most RPGs, reciprocity isn't always there.

Can be a problem if the PCs are paid in thanks, but have to pay stuff in money, granted, non-monetary rewards could also be used. Barter is something else than just gratitude.

I get what you are saying, but none of the activities (like getting crops, fixing the teahouse, etc.) cost the PCs anything. The most anything costs the PCs is if they want to be a 4gp or 40gp teaset - which the inventor they have in the party can actually make. And even this is optional.

Not the part I was thinking about in that particular post, was more talking about buying things; food, healing, spellcasting, other services... so if they are paid in thanks, but they have to pay with money.

Also, it can be useful to be open about the whole "resources" thing this AP has with the players.

Souls At War wrote:

Thanks and goodwill only go so far, especially when being a one way thing, gratitude won't put food on the table most of the time.

Well that's... that's actually kind of exactly how it worked in premodern villages and small towns. I get what you're saying, but as it happens, the network of gratitude and reciprocity is what put food on the table when you had a bad harvest. You banqueted your neighbours when you had surplus and they returned the favour.

Yeah, but in most RPGs, reciprocity isn't always there.

Can be a problem if the PCs are paid in thanks, but have to pay stuff in money, granted, non-monetary rewards could also be used. Barter is something else than just gratitude.

Thanks and goodwill only go so far, especially when being a one way thing, gratitude won't put food on the table most of the time.

There is also the risk vs reward part, if doing something cost more resources for the PCs than they get in return, they might be bothered by this. Part of this might be bad luck with dice rolls.

It can also be useful to tell the players ahead of time that they are expected to spend a lot of resources, and as a GM to remember they will need said resources.

There is also a possibility that this AP simply isn't for them.

Souls At War wrote:

Kinda reminds me, I would like a good explanation on how the Lumber Consortium has that much power.

I am curious to hear Paizo's explanation. But my explanation is simple, they have a monopoly over lumber products. This includes firewood and charcoal from wood. So if someone wants to heat their home, they buy lumber from the consortium, if someone wants to cook, they buy lumber from the consortium, if someone wants a hot bath, they buy lumber from the consortium, if they want to rebuild anything from their wood home, they buy lumber from the consortium.

So this grants them a whole lot of power, even if people don't like them and are corrupt and greedy and do vile stuff, politicians going against them have to deal with the fact that they have levegered this into power.

The Lumber Consortium is a holdover from Old Cheliax, when some amount of corruption was de rigeur, IIRC they were on the outs with the old Government so they prolonged their power by throwing their weight behind the new Independent Andoran Government, so that the latter felt like they owed the former a favor or two.

That and the fact that Andoran's foreign policy is predicated by "we're a naval power" so they need a lot of wood for a lot of ships. Since they've been preparing for a new war with Cheliax for a while, any action that resulted in "less access to ships, shipbuilding, and lumber" would be disfavored by the Andoran state as it would make them temporarily less ready for that war.

That would help explain quite a few things, including how they can keep powerful beings and organizations at bay.

For Andoran I would love to see more of the political factions and organizaitons. Major guilds have a seat in the People's Council. Also how council districts are drawn and chosen. The Lumber consortium is a big one but there should be others.

Kinda reminds me, I would like a good explanation on how the Lumber Consortium has that much power.

We need a proper villains campaign where we actually fight angels, heralds of good deities and their champions, not villain vs villain again

And being proactive instead of being on the defensive.

The point is that Paizo does not know where the boundaries and/or comfort level for specific types of actions lie with your (and every other) group.

Even Hell's Vengeance is fairly well "sanitized" from what it could be.

Aside from the Chelish curse, HV suffered from inverting the roles of heroes and villains, one of the reasons it didn't feel like an Evil AP.

I'm more interested in being in service to evil powers for my own reasons than actually being evil.

Going by old rules, this is pretty much the same thing, especially for PCs.

How will you handle the Caravan stuff?

And you can have a discussion thread in Online Campaingns/Play by Post Discussion, it can automatically(?) be created by selecting the "Discussion" tab at the top of this page.

Edit: ninja'ed