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Sorry I got quiet, not only the Christmas holiday interference, but I also became very sick with the flu at the beginning of this week. After a few days conked out on meds, I'm starting to feel half-human. I will be working on getting more posts up as time permits.
"It is a statue of Old Sharptooth! A great kobold hero so powerful he grew wings!" Mimek taps his chest in salute fashion. "Mimek hopes to grow wings one day, just like Old Sharptooth." Mimek gestures to the east side of the room. "We must cross the chasm and find the mite war leader. He will know where the Sacred Statue is found." Mimek roots among the bodies of the mites the party has slain and arms himself with two daggers in rather poor condition and one of the simple spears they used to jab him and his comrades. He hisses and stabs the sharp end into one of the mites bodies, trying to reclaim the feelings of powerlessness he recently experienced.
"There were others with you that were killed by the mites?" Three other kobolds are also hanging throughout the room, but they do not move. Their bloody bodies hang limply, and they do not seem to be breathing. Mimek forces himself to look at the corpses of his comrades. "They were brave but foolhardy and fell too easily into the traps the mites laid for us." "They have taken something of yours?" Mimek nods at the human woman. "The Sacred Statue. It is a powerful artifact which is...sacred to the Sootscale Clan."
The kobold drops his torso like ne in fervent prayer.
The kobold bows from his torso as in fervent prayer.
Sorry for missing Friday there. I will be much more available now.
Mimek regards Adela's hand with some fear, but once the light of her spell washes over him, he blinks a couple of eyelids and gushes with gratitude. "Mimek feels so warm, strength returns...[/b]" the kobold rasps as he watches the punctures and other wounds heal. His eyes once hazy from the pain looks around at the mite slaughter surrounding him. As if the sight of the corpses and their bluish blood draining into the earth humbles him, Mimek drops to his knees and clutches his claws together. "Mighty warriors with magic! Please help Mimek. Please, please, please!" The kobold drops his torso like ne in fervent prayer. "My party has failed, but you are powerful and can save the Sacred Statue!"
The kobold seems completely depleted of energy once its feet touch the ground. It looks around warily through half-lidded reptilian eyes and briefly leans on a stalagmite for support. "Th-thank you. Mimek thanks you," the kobold says through ragged breaths.
Sorry soonish got turned into longish. I'm going to try and post once a day as for the foreseeable future that should be possible.
The kobold flinches from Alyssa's touch and bares its fangs which appears to be nothing more than a grimace. When it sees she is trying to undo the knots, it relaxes, well, collapses in total submission whimpering quietly.
While I'm sure you are all used to it, I apologize for the delay. I got caught up in all of the holiday stuff last week and the fallout from having a holiday after returning to the workplace. I'll have something up soonish.
Alyssa feels a surge of power from within and conjures an extra large orb of acid which completely engulfs the remaining mite. Even as its form begins to dissolve, Rhiann's dangerous fauchard slices the prone mite's neck sending its head flying from its shoulders. Mimek's eye rolls in the direction of the melting mite and the kobold spits a gob of aspirated blood in its direction. Only two mites remain alive, however temporary: Mite 1 is barely breathing but remains unconscious for now, and Mite 6 weakly pulls itself along the cavern floor over the vines as it bleeds out from the leg wound .
Erik's intended target lives for at least another few seconds as his slice is intercepted by a vine which floats loose as a soft fetid draft from further down the cavern causes the plant appendage to sway. However, the prone mite tries to scramble away on all fours and Erik's instinctive slash nicks an artery in the mite's leg. It cries out as it flees, its movement now hampered and a moment later it has bled out . Adela attempts to end its suffering, but the bolt digs in to the cavern floor a few feet away. The remaining mite shrieks in anger and tries to stab Erik again with its pitiful spear.
It fails to even cause a scratch.
Erik and Adela now have their opportunity to finish off the cruel mite tormentors. Old Sycamaore & combat: –2 penalty on all melee and non-magical ranged attack rolls made within the lair as a result. Characters making ranged attacks may use a Swift action to avoid this penalty
Movement in combat is reduced by 5ft while running distance is halved. All combatants AC is increased by 1 point.
Neither Rhiann or Alyssa manage to get a hit on the other mite. It jumps as Rhiann's deadly looking fauchard gets briefly tangled in a vine deflecting it past the mite's head. Then when a magical glob of acid strikes the stalagmite just to its left it gasps at the sizzling chemical reaction the substance has with the rock before the spell vanishes into magical vapor. Quite terrified it drops its stick and turns to flee. But its abject terror causes it not to be very careful and forget its footing.
Mite 6 trips on a vine falls in a tangle of limbs.
Erik's attack isn't quite on the mark and whiffs past Mite 5's startled face. Adela can see the bolt from her crossbow appears to simply strike Mite 6 in the nose and be deflected by the giant lumpy shnoz. Eyes wide at the larger humanoid in front of him, Mite 5 flails with his sharp pointy stick in Erik's general direction.
My heartfelt apologies. I've been so involved in the election results and discussions surrounding them, I realized yesterday, I hadn't even looked at the Paizo forums going on a week. I will definitely get us moving, but today is the day after a holiday, so work is a little full. I will try to get something later this afternoon/evening to get the next section of the battle going.
Wife's mom had a birthday thing this weekend as well, plus election shenanigans and debating virtues of ballot items with family and friends has stolen my attention. All of my US players: Please vote!
Is everyone's Gameplay byline up to date after the level up? I used that to re-confirm everyone's Initiative and Perception, and I want to make sure nothing's changed.
The remaining two mites shriek in surprise staring aghast as their comrades blood sprays across them and the bound kobold. "Please, please no hurt Mimek," the sooty-colored kobold whimpers.
Mites 4 & 3 fall in sprays of blood, eviscerated by Erik and Rhiann's obvious martial prowess. Mite 1 receives enough damage from the Alyssa's magical acid to fall unconscious, but its labored breathing show it still lives. Mite 2 falls to the ground bleeding out, and it will likely pass on very soon. Initiative:
Sorry, posts will be forthcoming. I'm still alive.
Roll20 map is updated for your new position.
As they party descends to the bottom of the shaft, cries of anguish and torment make their way to everyone's ears. The vines and earth had muffled the sounds from being heard above. It is easy enough to drop down to the ground from the shaft's opening as again the ceiling and floor are relatively close together. Bundles of vines and groups of stalactites/stalagmites obscure the view of the room well enough that unless one is looking, those entering or descending from the shaft would not be easily noticed. Erik finds the body of the dead mite easily enough, a pile of gore hidden from sight behind the earthen formations. When the body struck the ground, the screams must have covered the splat! from the those occupying the room. Just a ways beyond six mites are seen taking turns cruelly jabbing a kobold with the same sooty coloring as the ones previously encountered hangs from the ceiling by its arms which have been lashed to a stalactite with vines. Its cries of pain echo throughout the small chamber. Three other kobolds are also hanging throughout the room, but they do not move. Their bloody bodies hang limply, and they do not seem to be breathing.
I'm physically in the office today, so update will happen once I get home.
The chakram splits the mite into pieces as the bladed edge slices through its upper abdomen and part of its head. The pieces and accompanying gore fall down into the darkness.
Erik's chakram misses the mite and embeds into a root above its big blue head causing it to squawk in alarm. It begins descending faster clearly more afraid of the party then falling.
Adela: PM sent.
Am I to assume, no one else has anything to add aside from Erik then?
Erik's strike on the strange melting Mu-223 has an almost expected unexpected affect. The creature cries out as it throws up its hands to ward the blow, but when's Erik's blade sinks into its flesh, its body suddenly loses cohesion and simply collapses in a rush of messy blue fluid. Aside from the strange puddle it leaves behind, all traces of its original appearance are gone. Rhiann manages to slash one of the newcomers deeply, and it falls to the root and caltrop covered floor with a gurgle. Adela and Alyssa's attacks unfortunately miss as they have trouble accounting for the cramped quarters and hanging obstacles. Seeing its comrade killed so easily, the other newcomer turns and drops out of sight. Just beyond here is another root laced opening similar to the one the party entered to reach the caves. The mite swiftly begins to descend. Tau-75 is horrified by the sight of Mu-223 liquifying and takes a step backward only to trip over a root and fall on its butt roughly. It covers its face with its hands and cowers in terror.
There is a squawk from the darkness where Tau-75 disappeared. Two rather normal—if ugly— blue-skinned creature with unfortunate noses and droopy pointed-ears holding weapons and stare at the party in shock and alarm. One points at the group and yells something at Mu-223 in a tongue not currently understood. Mu-223's drooping face jerks up in surprise, and it replies in the same language more fumblingly. Then it's melting eyes swivel towards the everyone in horror, and it leaps to its feet. Tau-75 appears behind the two newcomers looking both annoyed and confused. Then the two mites attack brandishing well-worn blades.
Initiative:
Combat and movement in the Old Sycamore caverns: –2 penalty on all melee and non-magical ranged attack rolls made within the lair as a result. Characters making ranged attacks may use a Swift action to avoid this penalty
Movement in combat is reduced by 5ft while running distance is halved. All combatants AC is increased by 1 point.
I'm terribly sorry about the delay. Work has been kicking my ass. Apparently it got the memo I actually wanted to get posts up and decided to crush my dreams. I'm not ready to throw in the towel as long as you guys want to keep going, but I think I'm going to reevaluate what I had planned to do with this game. I have always wanted to run a Kingmaker which incorporated character stories and new ideas into the spaces left by the basic hexploration blurbs, but trying to navigate between the bits I'm wanting to incorporate and the making sure I'm balancing the story between them successfully makes my posting require so much more planning than I feel I'm currently able to contribute time. I think I'm going to have to abandon some of that and just run the AP as written for the most part and only make adjustments as your characters create them. This should enable me to post more frequently...which of course will also be limited to how often you guys post. I know it's my fault we're running slowly right now, and I've set the cadence for this but I'm working to change that. Just be aware that going forward, I hope to be more reliable allowing you to post more often as well.
Holy smokes, I thought I responded to those last gameplay posts. Ugh, must have been sitting on a tab that got closed after getting distracted at work. Sorry for the delay. I'll have it up by tomorrow.
Mu-223 looks up from the catapult. "Oh, they're just napping in the hole over there. Tau-75 will be back right quick."
Tau-75 mouth hangs open grotesquely as its brow furrows in what might be confusion or maybe deep thought. Mu-223 strokes its chin, and the way its fingers move the nearly liquid skin causes weird ripples which are nauseating to watch. "A finger shiny? Might have seen something like that, but really we're looking for kobolds. Do you have any? Assuming you aren't kobolds like you claim." Mu-223 drawls; its eyes moving in unfortunate ways as it squints at the party like egg yolks sliding through the whites. Tau-75 snaps its mouth shut and then snaps it blocky fingers. "We should ask Dingletooth and Uurch. They know kobolds and the shinies." Mu-223 grunts, "Bleh, you go on then. I don't want to get up." The creature lazily reaches for a caltrop from a pile next to him and places it into the toy catapult, and begins to wind back the mechanism. Tau-75 begins walking towards the opening closest to him.
Shiny: There are many things which a humanoid could wear which could have a sparkle especially to those who spend most of their time in unlighted, unshiny places. Armor, jewelry, eyeglasses, polished or painted scales of some reptilian races. Your minds spin with the possibilities.
When Alyssa's magic light spreads throughout the space, the cavern's appearance is very earthen and moist. Packed earth laced with trace minerals and roots make the walls that surround the group, and more roots and stalactites and their matching stalagmites litter the space. The ceiling is low already, but the added dangling items make movement and visibility a bit of a challenge. Woe to those blessed with height. Shadows dance in all directions making the darkness at the edge of the light appear to be reaching tendrils across the space in all directions. There appear to be two exits in different directions leading into darkness past the lighted bolt's range. The space between the party and the creatures is littered with caltrops. The greater density appear surrounding the creature which spoke. And...creature is certainly a word for it. It reminds the group of the wooden blocks everyone plays with as a child, often with colorful faces including letters and numbers. If those colors had all been shades of blue, and if someone had stacked thousands of these blocks the size of sugar cubes in the shape of a small humanoid that resembled a goblin or something and then put some kind of rags on it. Yes...that could explain its appearance. The block creature regards Alyssa with what must be incredulity and scratches its head. Its finger brushes against the caltrop impaled in its forehead, and unsticks it with an audible pop! while trickles of blood continue to stream down the side of its enormous blocky nose. Examining the caltrop intensely, it speaks again. The perfectly crisp cadence and refined accent in Common no less startling now that its speaker has magical torchlight on its face. "Not kobolds...it says kobolds are quite a bit different." It pops the caltrops in its mouth and swallow sit one gulp. "Didn't you claim to have seen a kobold once, Mu-223? What do you think of these not-kobolds?" Mu-223 must be the other creature, and like its fellow, it is very unusual. While the first creature appears to be made up of small blue blocks, this one is melting. Yes, that is the best way to imagine it. If it was possible for a creature to simply turn into the depressing sight attributed to cold treats left out on a summer day or a wax figure exposed to heat and then frantically returned to the icebox, this would be Mu-223. While its blue skin doesn't actually appearing to be dripping off of its body, there's no mistaking it looks like several puddles got together to play humanoid. "Hmm...hmm. Mayhap, Tau-75, mayhap." From its seated position, Mu-223 blinks its dripping eyes at the group barely visible behind the bulbous ice cream scoop of a nose. "I just remember that one they got locked up is shiny. That one's got some shine to it." It melts a finger in Rhiann's direction as Alyssa's light twinkles across the chain shirt she's wearing.
Sorry for the delay. As I've decided to make some changes to this scene (whole dungeon), I'm making sure I've accounted for everything before posting the creatures' responses. Heading to a concert tonight, so post will probably be tomorrow.
Is the penalty to attack just for melee, or ranged as well? The book's wording leads me to believe yes, which does make sense when you imagine someone using a bow in the traditional style (vertical) or a sling while horizontal-shooting (non-traditional bow & crossbow) would seem less likely to be impeded. We'll add this to the situational rule: "A player can drop to one knee and raise from one knee as a swift action to avoid the penalty to Ranged attacks. Magical ranged attacks are unaffected by the penalty." Thus anyone making ranged attacks that aren't magical only has to give up their Swift action to avoid the penalty.
Darkvision:
The way I treat darkvision is like shapes and the obvious gradients of gray scaling from whitest to blackness. While not a perfect example, I found this image on the web, and I feel it sufficiently illustrates my perspective on darkvision.
This image has a lot of white as obviously it represents a camera flash on the surface of things in the dark. If you scale down the white, you're left with a whole of featureless shapes which make judging detail and distance/depth much more difficult. Please consider this how any description I give based on darkvision will operate going forward. Please let me know if you have any questions, but we can move it to Discussion. What Erik sees: Erik drops down into the cavern and witnesses the sight of two...creatures playing some kind of absurd game. One has what appears to be a toy catapult in between its outstretched legs while the other stands across the space near the far wall. The one standing is surrounded by what could either be jacks from the children's game or caltrops; it's difficult to be sure especially since the creatures are about child-sized. Even as Erik surveys them, the two creatures blink uncertainly at him. The rest of his party noisily descends behind him, the one with catapult triggers the device or stops holding its tension or whatever and a jack/caltrop shoots across the room. The one standing isn't paying any attention to its fellow, and the small pointy thing lodges with a quiet squitch into its forehead. The creature doesn't react to this in the slightest, and a small dark line begins snaking its way down the creature face. Erik can presume this is blood or some other liquid now leaking from the where the thing has struck.
The two creatures are very difficult to discern aside from their general small humanoid shape. Erik can see two pointy ears jutting horizontally from their heads, but their features are indistinct without light. They may have bulbous noses or snouts or just really big warts in the center of their faces, and there are definitely indents where most humanoids have eyes, but Erik cannot make out more than that. After a few beats, eventually one of them says, in perfect, refined Common, "Pardon me, but do you happen to be kobolds?"
Whoops! Should have paid closer attention. Darkvision still changes what I would have described, so I'll get a tailored description here shortly.
A tone of the heroic party totally curb stomps their enemies. Finding lots of gold and magic items? ;) Lol, I don't really have a problem with that honestly. I could give you my opinions of wealth-by-level, spells/ability uses per day, and magic item slot restrictions, but I'm sure it would cause a ruckus. :P
And that's what happens when the GM takes forever to post. I had this whole thing written out about what you guys see...only to realize no one can actually see it! No light! LOL! Ah, well. Next post probably assuming one of you brightens things up.
Despite the racket (or perhaps because of the complete lack of anything resembling an attempt to be quiet), when the party drops one by one into the low ceilinged chamber, the cavern's occupants (of which those with low-light vision can only just make out in the dark) seem to stop moving around and stare at the newcomers. After a few beats, eventually one of them says, in perfect, refined Common, "Pardon me, but do you happen to be kobolds?" Alyssa and Erik can just make out some short shapes in the dim light coming in from the shaded opening above. Best guess, 2? Maybe 3? Combat and movement in the Old Sycamore caverns: Ceiling height is rarely over 5 feet high, with much of the upper foot a tangle of roots and thin stalactites. Medium creatures in these caves are forced to stoop over or adjust the swing of their weapons, and suffer a –2 penalty on all attack rolls made within the lair as a result. Movement in combat is reduced by 5ft while running distance is halved. All combatants AC is increased by 1 point due to the stalactites/stalagmites and hanging roots which sporadically dot the terrain and interfere with precision strikes.
OK, the day got away from me. Should have expected that after a holiday. Lots of work follow up. I expect to have time in the morning, however. I will make time to post. I’m already writing it in my head, and I’ve figured out the tone I want.
Yes, I will update today. Holiday weekend in US just ended. Kind of had a last minute get together I wasn't entirely prepared for or expecting. Sorry for being silent.
Pre-Launch: Adela/Malki:
Roderick's eyes go wide. "Fey!?
He looks around the small ruins and towards the trees beyond with apprehension. "I-I will try to stay on their good side, I g-guess." He bends down to pat Malki's head gently. "Try not to be too mean if they come around, little Malki...who knows how they'll react to growls." No obvious signs your approach has been noticed. The previous sounds continue to recur unabated. As best as Erik can determine, the scratching and clanking noises are often followed by excited utterances, but he cannot make out the words or if they are words at all and not some sort of grunting.
Tried to post several times, but work got in the way. I'll try to get something later on however.
Ah, yes. Think I generated all the tokens before you indicated you were leaving him behind. I appreciate it.
The battle map is open! The upper right is the vertical view, but once you've entered, we will be moving to the top-down view which is most of the map. |
